Something to Remember Me By
by Apprentice Writer
Summary: Lucas didn't want to Brawl. He didn't want to be there. Why was he forced to come? Even more importantly, why is everyone acting like it was his choice? For some reason Lucas gets the feeling he's forgetting something.
1. The Rule

**I came up with the story for this fic while I was writing a Mother 3 Oneshot and decided to mention Lucas' time in the Brawl. I just can't help but love the tragic friendship between Lucas and Ness, especially since they are hundreds of years apart timeline wise. It's actually quite sad for all Brawlers, especially those that make close friends.**

**But, anyway, enough of my rambling, on with the fic.**

* * *

The Subspace Incident itself didn't actually take all that long. It wasn't such a significant amount of time that the set time for the Brawl needed to be extended. It was actually the cleanup that took more time than anything.

The Brawl itself was supposed to last six months. For the people outside of the Brawl no time would pass. It was only the fighters themselves that would be affected by this time. However, there was a limit to the time and nobody liked the fact they were losing nearly a month of their time for repairs to the stages and other important areas. Of course, everyone knew that wasn't the real reason for the repairs. The veterans knew Master Hand could fix those things with a twitch of his pinkie. The real issue that Master Hand himself.

The whole being controlled by Tabuu thing did a number on the floating hand. It would take him some time to recover. He didn't have the strength to keep all of the fights safe at the moment, so he was forced to delay them. Most people weren't happy with this, but they submitted to the wait. There were many things to do here that didn't involve fighting.

Lucas didn't want to wait. He just wanted to go home and see what had become of the Nowhere Islands. He wasn't even sure they were still there. The last thing he remembered was pulling the final needle, the last thing he needed to do on his journey. After that, everything was a blank. He didn't want to come to this tournament at all. He just ended up there. Master Hand didn't really give him a choice.

Oh what a great 'honor' it was to be there, to fight people who he had never met over nothing. They fed him and put a roof over his head, but that didn't make him want to participate in this thing. He could try running away, but that would do him about as much good as trying to reason with the hand to let him go home. A ruler without limits was always a tyrant. After Porky, just about any form of leadership put a foul taste in Lucas' mouth.

At least he might be able to make a few friends again, though. Lucas closed his eyes and sighed. The first person he met here was a boy in a hat. They hadn't gotten to introduce themselves yet, so Lucas didn't know his name. Next was a boy who commanded strange chimeras called Pokémon. Lucas knew his name. He was Red, but he was registered under the name of Pokemon Trainer, so he could represent everyone in his homeland. Both boys were very nice to Lucas. He could see himself getting along with them during these six months.

The repairs hadn't yet started on the stages, but today was the day they would all be introduced to each other. This was actually the second time they tried to do this. The first everyone left angrily when the giant hand never showed up. Some of the brawlers were missing too, namely the bad guys. Everyone assumed the tournament was off and looked for a way out of this pocket dimension. This time was different. The hand had actually shown up this time.

"Welcome Brawlers!" Master Hand managed to say despite not having a mouth. His voice snapped Lucas out of his daydreaming. "I'm sure some of the newcomers are curious as to why you were brought here. I instructed the staff to give out only the bare minimum amount of information to you."

"Yeah, cause that went over so well…" Lucas muttered in annoyance. He hadn't realized how loud he was. It turned out quite a few people could hear him.

The dark haired PSI user that had saved him gave Lucas a rather surprised look. Of course, he was one of those people that mistook Lucas for someone compliant. Yep, blond boy with a cowlick did what he thought was right and didn't care what anyone thought. Of course, his shy nature caused the young boy to flinch at his black haired saviour's look. However, he quickly found a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

That was Red for him. The boy was good at calming things, including Lucas. Though they hadn't known each other long, the blond boy trusted him almost completely. He sort of reminded him of his friend Duster in that way.

"Ah, yes…" The hand would have looked embarrassed if he had a face. "I do regret that a bit. I wanted you to hear the situation from me rather than anyone else. I apologise for the inconvenience I've caused all of you."

So a tyrant could apologise. It didn't make him any less of a tyrant, though. Lucas refused to think any other way towards the hand. He was hard set in his ways.

"I'll begin with the basics. You are all some of the universe's finest examples of heroes, villain, and things that lay somewhere in between. You come from various worlds and times. I gathered you together because of this. I am rather glad I did now. Had I not, I would still be under Tabuu's rule." Master Hand paused for a moment, as if unsure of whether his should thank them. It seemed as though he decided against it though. "I brought you here to fight in a friendly tournament. Of course, fighting will be the main goal, but I also wish to form friendships across the worlds."

Well, that part had already started. Lucas looked to Ness and Red for a moment. His taller friend was focussed on the hand. His saviour, on the other hand, was more focussed on a preformed a few tricks with his yo-yo. He was so getting a stern talking to later. Well, after Lucas found out what his name was. He hadn't even had time to properly thank the other boy yet.

"Of course, these friendships will have to have a few limitations. This is a tournament with rules. The first and most important of these rules is to avoid breaking the space time continuum. This means that talk of your time periods, important events, journeys, and technology is strictly off limits. You can talk about your friends and families, but be warned, if I catch any of you breaking this rule, I will have to do something about this."

For some reason, Lucas felt like the hand was glaring at him. Perhaps he was glaring at everyone. Nobody could tell, since he had no eyes. Lucas got the feeling that being ruled by this glove was not going to be very fun.

"A second rule is that there will be no fights outside of the stages, and all of those have to be approved first. There will be scheduled fights that you are required to attend, but besides those, you are free to challenge whoever you want. That doesn't mean you can force people into fights, though. Bullying and harming opponents outside of battle also will not be tolerated. As such, I've put in a certain safe guard that you've probably all noticed by now. Mario, please come up here and help me demonstrate."

A chubby man with a mustache and a red hat jumped onto the stage where the hand floated. It was actually quite impressive. Despite what his body shape implied, he could move like he weighted nothing at all. Lucas decided he didn't want to fight someone that strong. Not in the least.

"If your life is in serious danger, your body will be trophfied, as you have all seen." Lucas didn't like that word. Trophified. So they became trophies? Prizes for someone else? It disgusted him to hear. "However, if you feel that you are threatened, you can turn yourself into a trophy. Unlike if your life was in danger, if you change this way, I am the only one that can reverse it. I will be able to sense if you are turned this way, so don't worry that you'll be laying there forever."

Master Hand gestured to Mario for a moment and the red hatted man was engulfed in a white light. In his place stood a trophy of himself. Lucas squirmed uncomfortable. Being an object wasn't very fun. He knew from experience. Regardless, Mater Hand quickly reached over and turned him back.

"Thank you for the display, Mario. You're now free to go." As soon as Master Hand said this, Mario jumped off the stage and went back over to a man in a similar outfit and a woman in a pink dress. "All you are required to do is think that you want to turn into a trophy. However, please don't-"

Too late, there were four flashes of light around the room as four people changed themselves. Lucas hadn't been among them. This gave him the chance to shake his head at those who had acted without thinking. People cleared a path for the giant hand to get to each of them. Lucas didn't know the name of any of these people. There was a large fat man dressed similar to the Mario man, a young boy around Lucas' age with a green outfit, a strange blue hedgehog, and a pair of kids who for some reason shared a trophy. As the hand healed the two kids he muttered something about them knowing better.

"Now that we're over that, I'll continue." Lucas could tell who Master Hand was glaring at this time. "Please don't do this unless necessary. I'm a busy hand. I don't have the time to save you every time you think it's funny. Only use this ability if you are in danger."

The hand gave a sigh. He almost seemed to wobble as he floated there. Even just healing a few brawlers was taking a lot out of him at this point. Lucas was able to pick up a few of his thought vaguely. He decided to wrap this up. Normally, this would have lasted much longer, but the hand didn't have the strength for it right now. As soon a Lucas picked this up, his felt something force him out of the hand's mind. Of course he shouldn't be spying. He didn't normally like doing it anyway. It had just been an instinct to try and find out what was wrong when he thought someone was injured.

"For now, I'll let you all get to your rooms. Veterans, in other words the brawlers that had participated in a multiple tournaments, will have a private room unless assigned to a newcomer. Newcomers and these selected veterans, who have already received their assignments, will room together until the newcomer is comfortable enough with the mansion and rules to live on their own." The hand looked over the crowd. "Remember, selected veterans, this newcomer is your responsibility! If they move to a new room without the proper knowledge, you will be punished. As for the newcomers, listen to your assigned veteran! Everyone was a newcomer once; there is no shame in having a question. Your veteran was assigned to you for a reason. They will know how to help you best."

The hand floated off the stage and down the hall. As soon as he did, the crowd erupted into conversation. Suddenly, Lucas felt very confined. When the crowd was calm and quiet, it felt like he had lots of room to move. Now that they were all talking, he felt like he was stuck in a little box. He just wanted to get out and get to his room. He had to find his veteran.

_Assigned to us for a reason…_ the blond PSI user thought for a moment. It was probably someone he had already met and got along with. Without realizing it, he found himself looking up to Red expectantly.

"Sorry, Luc. I'm just as green as you are." Red gave him a compassion look that was somewhat marred by the fact he was grinning over the stupid colour pun he had made. Lucas got it, he just didn't find it very funny. "I'll stay with you until one of our vets come for us, though."

"Thanks Red…" He felt a little safer with the trainer by his side. It would be better if his other ally was talking to him too. But, no… His hatted saviour was still playing with his yo-yo, completely blocking out the busy world around him. It was truly shocking what a human could block out if they put their mind to it. At least the black haired boy was doing so really impressive tricks.

"It's not a problem. I hope our vets come soon though. I don't want to feel like the last guy picked for baseball." Red gave a little sigh.

Lucas turned when he felt a tap on his shoulder. His hatted saviour seemed to have finally finished playing with his damned yo-yo. Maybe he had an idea of who their veterans were. The room was slowly emptying. Now there were only around ten people in there.

"Did one of you two say baseball?" Of course that was what got his attention. Lucas wished he understood this boy better but some things couldn't be helped.

"That was me." Red raised his hand. "Sorry guy, but we're not looking for a game or discussing players or anything. I was just making a reference. Sorry for getting your hopes up."

The black haired PSI user looked a little disappointed but didn't seem to make a big fuss out of it. "It's fine. I didn't expect you to. I mean, it's still the first day. The baseball game won't be for a few months. Trust me, you don't know baseball until you've played baseball until you've played it here."

This got Lucas' attention. This meant that the other psychic had been here before. The boy had a little bit of hope. Maybe this was his veteran. That would be the best situation. Well, the best situation that didn't involve him going home and finding out everyone was magically okay. Unless one was using the Dark Dragon, praying for the impossible was useless, so Lucas didn't even try.

"You're a veteran?" Lucas asked softly.

The other boy grinned and smashed his fist into his chest with pride. "Yep, I'm one of the original twelve, from the first tournament. That means this is my third. Despite Master Hand's bragging, there really have only been three tournaments."

Lucas nodded to the other boy. "If you're a veteran, would you know who the assigned veterans for all the newcomers are?"

The black haired boy suddenly jumped like he just realised he left some nut bread in the stove. "Right! Shit! I completely forgot about that! I'm supposed to find my newcomer." He looked over Red and Lucas. "One of you wouldn't happen to be Lucas, would you?"

Lucas was starting to feel this boy had some serious personality issues, but he wouldn't bring it up. He wanted to befriend and thank this boy for all he had done, not make and enemy.

"I'm Lucas." The blond boy raised his arm. The other PSI user gave a sigh of relief right away.

"Oh good, it's someone I already know. Last year I got assigned the Ice Climbers, and they somehow managed to make it all the way into an illegal brawl before I found them." The hatted saviour rubbed the back of his neck nervous. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Lucas. I'm going to be your veteran for your stay here. My name's Ness."

Ness… It was a nice name. It sure fit the black haired boy. It was nice for Lucas to finally have a name to go with the face. For the last three days, the amount of time it had been since they all got to the mansion, he had just been calling the other boy his hatted saviour.

"It's nice to meet you too, Ness. I'm glad that my veteran is someone I already know as well. I guess I'm going to owe you more after this, aren't I?" Lucas shyly tipped his head to the side at the end of his statement. This got a little laugh out of Ness.

"I guess you'll have to find a way to pay me back someday," he chimed in a good natured way, as if trying to tell Lucas he really didn't need to pay him back at all. Of course, the other PSI user wouldn't allow that to stop him from trying.

A little cough got the two boy's attention. Red was giving them a slightly annoyed look. Lucas felt bad. He had almost completely forgotten about his friend while he was talking to Ness. The boy had actually fully intended to walk away without so much as a goodbye to the Pokémon trainer.

"If you guys are all fine and good, I was wondering if you knew who my vet was. I mean, there's not many people left and all…" Red rubbed his neck nervously. He gave a look at the thinning crowd of people to prove his point even further.

Ness blinked at the taller boy for a minute. "Well, we all received the list so… What's your name? I probably won't be able to, but I might remember who your veteran is."

"Red," the trainer answered without any hesitation. He saw Ness open his mouth to say something and realized his error. "I was registered under Pokémon Trainer, though. They probably put me as that one the list."

This got a smile out of the hatted psychic. He snapped his finger when he realized who Red's veteran was. "Oh, I do remember that one cause it was so funny. Your partner is Pikachu. I know cause I know he's gonna be all pissy about it. He thinks you're going to try to catch him. Don't, by the way. He can toast you before you get your first Pokémon out."

"So he's a Pokémon, huh… Well, that's gonna be interesting." Read shook his head and smiled. "I hope he's not too mad. It's nice like I brought any extra Pokeballs anyway. I only wanted to focus on the team I have now. Now I just have to find him…"

Without so much as a goodbye, Red wandered off to look for the electric mouse. This just left Lucas and Ness in the room. By now, all the other brawlers had left to go back to their rooms to rest. Even the veterans had to move into new rooms. The ones everyone had been staying in until now were just temporary housing. They all had stuff to move in.

"Well, no use standing around here. Let me show you to our room." Ness offered Lucas a reassuring smile as they headed out of the meeting room. As soon as they left, the door for it vanished, as if it was never there. It was likely it wouldn't show up until Master Hand needed it again. Lucas would have jumped if he wasn't already used to this strangeness. When he left his temporary room for this meeting. it had vanished as well.

They headed down a long hall way. The two boy's passed by an empty cafeteria on their way, but they didn't see too many more room until they reached a set of stairs. It was a long climb. Lucas was hoping they would just be on the second floor. It didn't seem so as Ness passed that door without so much as a passing glance. They passed the third as well, it was only on the fourth that they finally stopped.

"The first three floors are for important public things. All the rooms are on the fourth fifth and sixth floors. Lucky for us, we're on four. Trust me, you'll hate this climb after a long day of fighting," Ness explained casually.

"I already hate the climb," Lucas grumbled back.

Ness gave a laugh and headed down the hall. He stopped at a door with a picture of a blue person on it. He knocked on the door for a moment. When nobody replied, the boy pulled something out of his pocket. It looked like a card. The boy pressed it to the handle of the door. Lucas would have asked what he was doing if he hadn't heard a loud click.

"This is the boy's shower room," Ness began. "We'll have a toilet in our room, but there's no shower. We all have to use the public ones. Lucky for us, there are two more, one on each of the other floors. Cause of this, you should never have to be in here at the same time as someone else. It does happen sometimes, though. It's not a big deal since this isn't co-ed, but it can get weird. Just a general thing, but if a villain is showering when you walk in, just leave. No matter how much you stink, it's not worth the trouble. Things get weird fast."

With that said, the boy opened the door. The room was larger than Lucas expected. Even though it was rare for two people to use it at once, it had ten stalls. In the side of the room, Lucas saw something that caused him quite a bit of relief. A hot spring. He loved those things. Despite the 'modernization' of his home world, he had never mastered showers. He'd tried to us one in Kumatora's room once and ended up spraying himself in the face with ice cold water. Never again…

"Ah, you noticed the hot springs? Those are for people who either can't fit into a shower, like Bowser, or people who don't know how to use them, like Link. Despite that, they're pretty great. If you have the time, you should check them out." Ness paused until he caught movement from Lucas. "But not right now."

"Oh… Okay… Later then." Lucas felt a bit embarrassed. He really could go for a long soak after the stress of the long days. He muttered a soft goodbye to the hot spring. "Can we go to the room now?"

Ness nodded to him. "Yep, that's the next stop. Come on, Lucas. You've got the whole rest of the day for the hot spring."

With that, they left the boy's shower room and headed down the hall. Their room was actually at the end of the hall. It would be easier for them to remember that way. Ness pulled out the strange card again and pressed it to the door. Like before, it popped open easily.

"Well here we are, home sweet home!" Ness pulled the door open and showed Lucas where they would be saying. This certainly got a gasp out of the blond.

It was almost as big as his whole house. The room wasn't all that special, but the space was what was truly amazing to him. There wasn't much to it. It simply contained a desk with some paper and a pen on it, a dresser for each of them, two beds, and final, a wall full of sticks and baseball bats. It felt like something had been taken from the room, but the blond wasn't going to complain. This was the nicest place he'd ever been allowed to stay in.

"Wow… This sure is…" The newcomer couldn't find the word he wanted.

"Empty, huh?" Ness finished for him, though he selected the wrong word. Lucas was looking for huge. "As the fights go on, you'll earn points we can use to fill out the room. I don't suggest you use any of yours until you move into your new room, though. You don't wanna haul all that up to the sixth floor. I'll be keeping this one, so I can use mine whenever I want."

"My room would be on the sixth floor?" Lucas frowned as he said this. "I guess I'll have to stay with you forever."

This got a good laugh out of both of them. Lucas hadn't realized how much he needed this. He was still worried about his home, but he needed to relax. Otherwise the guilt in him would burn him up. Once he finished laughing, he looked at the size of the room again.

"Are all the rooms this big?" the blond boy asked with a curious look over to Ness. He could tell the other boy was enjoying his surprise. It must have been like entering the house for the first time again. Maybe Ness had wanted to come here, rather than being forced like Lucas. He sure seemed to think highly of it.

"Nope. This room is so big because we're sharing it. Then I get to keep it as a reward for showing you the ropes." Lucas didn't know what ropes he was going to be shown, but they had to be something special for this big of a reward. "Yours will be about half of the size of this one. A normal veteran's will be about three quarters. Still, they are all larger than the one I had at home."

"My home only had one room and it was about this size," Lucas said without thinking. He quickly covered his mouth.

"Don't worry, Lucas. Talking about the shape of your home is fine. It's more… Other things, like the state of the world or what you do to get the title of hero." The hatted saviour gave Lucas a little pat on the back. "Don't worry about it, okay?"

"Okay…"

With their talk done, Lucas finally entered the room. He found all his things were placed neatly by the bed. It unnerved him to know someone moved his stuff without telling him, but at least he didn't have to carry it all of the stairs. What he quickly found was more unnerving was the fact that all his clothes had been laid out of in the dresser. He hoped that Master Hand used his weird magic to do that rather than have someone go through all his clothes. He didn't like the thought of anyone touching his underwear.

Lucas sat down on the bed with a sigh. He'd already eaten today. The room he'd been in before seemed to know when he was hungry and would provide him with tasteless food. He didn't need to go down for dinner. More than anything, being around all those people had made his tired. Lucas just wanted to sleep and be sad. He missed his home, even if it was all destroyed now.

"I'll show you around the rest of the mansion tomorrow," Ness offered, going to the other bed. Lucas realized suddenly that he'd claimed the nicer bed, the one by the window. He hadn't meant to claim it just by sitting down.

"Ah, sorry, I should be giving you the good bed!" Lucas jumped up. This caused the other boy to wave his hand wildly.

"Calm down, Luc! You don't have to give up that bed. It was yours anyway. I mean, unless the big sunflower blanket was meant for me…" the other boy trailed off. "Besides, that's the side of the room where all your stuff is. Oh, and this is a good bed. It's closer to the door. Trust me, you'll wish you had it eventually."

This calmed the blond's nerves a little bit. He should have noticed that the bed had a sunflower. He was always around sunflowers anyway. The other bed's blanket had a picture of a baseball bat and a strange white and red ball. He'd ask Ness what it was later.

"So, have you got any other questions for me?" the blank haired boy asked from the other bed. "I figure I should use the first day to answer any questions you have."

Lucas looked down at the bed. He did have a lot of questions, but it felt awkward to ask them. He quickly tried to figure out what would be important enough to ask. "What were the other two tournaments like?"

This got a small hum out of the back haired boy. "Smaller than this one, but they were still lots of fun. We never had a big adventure like we did in this one. It was mostly just fighting and bonding. I made lots of friends. It's a little sad, though. Making those friends and then showing up at the next tournament and not seeing them. One of my friends from last one, Young Link, was told he wasn't going to continue for Brawl. I miss him, but if I'd never gotten in, I'd never have met him."

Lucas furrowed his brows. Ness really was acting like he liked being here. "You like being here?"

"Course! It's fun! I haven't had the chance to really go wild with my PSI since my big adventure." The hatted boy smiled for a moment until he noticed Lucas's frown. "You didn't want to come here?"

"I don't really like fighting. It can be fun sometimes, and my PSI makes me feel really strong, but I don't like hurting people." The blond sighed. "I was really upset when I woke up here. I was in the middle of something really important and I need to know if my friends are okay."

"Master Hand didn't ask you before he brought you here?" The other boy shook his head in disbelief. "He's always been really big on getting your permission before he does anything to you. If you didn't want to come here, you must be something really special for him to not let you get away."

Lucas was right about Ness being a special type of person. It wasn't everyone that could spin something like that into a compliment. The blond couldn't help but let it sooth his frayed nerves a little. At least he'd have a kind roommate. It made him feel a little better about asking one of his stupider questions.

"You and Red brought it up earlier, but I didn't know what it was. I've heard the term before but… What's baseball?"

Lucas didn't need to be able to read minds to know he'd made a terrible mistake as soon as he saw the evil gleam in Ness' eyes. He was in for a very long night.

* * *

After Ness' three hour explanation of baseball, Lucas didn't even have the strength to visit the hot spring. He'd simply flopped back over into the bed and closed his eyes. He had no strength to either change clothes or just tell Ness good night. All he could do was think and go to sleep.

Ness reminded him now of a local girl named Nana who was famous for going on for hours over the simplest things. Lucas had once made the mistake of listening to her talk about the piano for hours and it felt something like this when she finally stopped talking. Lucas didn't have the strength to handle the conversation. The boy closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep thinking of pianos and the complexities of baseball.

"Luc?" How did Ness still have the strength to speak? Lucas was nearly in dreamland. He didn't want to have to listen. "Listen… It's about Porky."

Oh, now that got Lucas up. The boy snapped awake and pushed himself up to look at Ness.

"Don't feel you need to owe me over saving you for his statue. He's my problem, not yours…" There was a sudden sadness in the black haired boy's voice. "I can't tell you more than that, but I'm sorry. If it wasn't for me he wouldn't be…"

Ness wasn't able to continue. He just got up and went over to the bathroom. Now he'd gotten Lucas curious though. There was no way that Ness could know Porky unless they came from the same world. Considering they had the same powers, that wouldn't even be a big surprise. If only they could know for sure.

"Damn that rule..."


	2. The Tour

**Yep, Chapter 2 is finished already. I like to pump out chapters as fast as I can. Besides, grumpy sad Lucas is always fun to write.**

**Before the chapter begins, I'd like to mention that for the sake of this fic, Lucas will be unable to read Ness' mind. The explanation for this is that psychics can block other psychics from reading their mind. Unless they willingly put their barriers down, nobody can spy on their thoughts.**

* * *

It was a while after Ness left the room that Lucas finally calmed his mind enough to get to sleep. The black haired boy had never come from the bathroom. Even though it was over an hour later, he just stayed in there. Lucas couldn't help but wonder if it was his fault. Did Ness hide himself in there because of the shame of knowing Porky? If that was the case, they should both be ashamed. Porky was more Lucas' problem than anyone's.

"Night Ness…" the blond boy mumbled as he finally got himself under the covers of the bed. He looked to the door to see if Ness could hear him. It didn't seem to be the case though. There was no movement from the other boy. This got a sigh out of the blond. Ness would come out when he was ready. There was nothing else he could do about it. Maybe he was just waiting for Lucas to sleep, so sleep Lucas did.

* * *

_It was a strange dream. The first thing that Lucas notice was the smell. It was wonderful and awful. There was the familiar smell of home, the smell of his brother. It was marred by the fact that he could also smell chemicals, burned flesh, and a lot of blood. Horror gripped him. Had someone hurt Claus? The brother that he had missed for three years was right here, but he could be dying for all Lucas knew._

_Something was wrapped around him, stopping him from looking for his brother. All he could do was look with his eyes. He quickly realized that the person that was stopping him was actually Claus himself. Wisps of red hair got into Lucas' face due to the closeness to his missing twin. He had wanted this feeling for so long._

"_Claus…" It felt more like a memory than anything. He was happy with this dream, though. If he could be with Claus, then he was happy. However, it quickly became sad. He found his brother's grip tighten around him to the point of nearly crushing him. Claus had always been much stronger than him, but not this strong._

"_Why did you forget me Lucas?" Claus' voice sounded wrong. It was nothing like he remembered. It was barely human at this point. It carried a heavy metallic tinge to it. "Did I mean that little to you? You can run from the truth, brother, but you can never escape it."_

_Lucas let out a strangled sound as the arms around him got tighter and tighter until… A loud crack sounded and Lucas found himself in horrific pain. The dark world finally went black._

* * *

Lucas nearly jumped clean out of his bed. He was covered in sweat from that dream. This last three days he didn't remember any of his dream, but this one was different. It felt so real. The boy reached up and touched his face, only to find tears running down it. He angrily wiped them away. It had been year since he let himself cry like that. The villagers mocked him for mourning for his dead mother and lost brother for so long so he had sealed the ability to cry away.

"No crying til the end. No crying…" he muttered to himself. It was a mantra to make himself stronger. The tears had now stopped but his shame didn't. Of course the first time he was rooming with someone else he started crying like a weakling. Kumatora and his father would be so ashamed of him right now.

It had been a while since he had dreams about Claus. His brother had been gone for three whole years. Though he still worried and mourned for his brother, he had stopped having these nightmares. They did him no good. All they did was make it so he couldn't sleep. The boy had sealed up the part of his heart that missed his brother, just so that he could get some sleep. That didn't mean he had forgotten about Claus though.

He could never forget Claus. They were twins, two halves of the same person. He wasn't really Lucas without Claus. Of course, Claus would have been fine without Lucas. He was the strong one. He didn't need any help. If Lucas had been the one to go missing, he was sure his brother would have been able to move on and be happy. Lucas wouldn't allow himself that luxury. He would never forget his brother, no matter what his dream told him.

The blond knew he would not be able to get back to sleep. There wasn't even any use in trying. He would just get another nightmare. He turned to look over to the other bed. Good, Ness had finally gone to sleep. He was worried the other boy would stay up all night. A part of him wished Ness had, though. Then they could talk. Or maybe that was worse because he would have seen Lucas' tears.

The blond boy got out of the bed and looked out the window. The stars were much different than in his homeland, but the moon was the same. He gazed at it for a while. At least that could sooth him a little. It was going to be a long night of star gazing.

"Luc… Luc…"

Lucas covered his head with his hands and gave a loud groan. "No Claus… I don't wanna play with the Dragos…"

'Claus' gave a little laugh at his comment and nudged Lucas with his foot. This finally caused Lucas to open his eyes. It wasn't Claus that tried to wake him at all. He was used to that disappointment, though. How many times had he called Kumatora by that name during their journey? He wasn't really sure. At least Ness didn't know what that name meant. It was always sad when Lucas used it on someone who knew the truth.

"Fine, if you don't want to eat, we don't have to. Don't come complaining to me when you miss breakfast." Oh, that definitely worked. Lucas' stomach growled like the Ultimate Chimera. If there was any hope of Lucas going back to sleep, it was lost once his hatted saviour let loose that beast.

"Alright, I'm up, I'm up." The blond boy rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up. Somehow, he'd ended up on the floor. He didn't have any memory of going to sleep, just of staring at the moon for a few hours. That was probably what put him to sleep.

Lucas stretched and headed for the washroom. He'd been in New Pork City and the 'modernized' Tazmily long enough to know what to do in here. He did his business and then got to work on straightening out his hair. He pushed it all into the signature cowlick of his. The hair didn't fight. That was its natural shape, after all. Though he didn't have a brush with him right now, his fingers would do for now.

"Lucas…" he heard Ness complain outside of the room. "Hurry up. It's like ten in the morning. Breakfast is going to close soon."

"I'll be out soon," Lucas replied. As soon as he said that, he left the bathroom. "Ready to go?"

"I have been forever." The black haired PSI user rolled his eyes. He began heading for the door when he realized something. "Luc, are you going to change your clothes?"

"I changed them yesterday." Lucas started heading for the door, but Ness blocked it.

"Go change Luc. You smell terrible. I'd say take a shower too, but we don't have the time." He frowned at his blond roommate.

Lucas let out a sigh. "Fine, but don't blame me if we're late."

As the blond went to go change, he heard his possible friend call out to him from the main room. "Of course I'm gonna blame this on you. It's your fault on every level. You must come from one really weird place if you think wearing the same sweaty clothes day after day is a good idea."

Lucas rolled his eyes at him. "It's not a big deal. You're supposed to wear a pair of clothes more than once before washing it. Why does it matter if you happen to wear it two days in a row? Besides, all my clothes look the same. It's not like anyone can tell the difference."

"Correction." The black haired move grinned, finally cornering Lucas in their playful verbal war. "They can't see the difference, but they can smell it."

"Whatever." Lucas finished pulling on a new pair of clothes and walked back over to Ness. "So, are we going to chat all day, or are we going to eat?"

"You know, I liked you a lot better when you were shy."

This got a little yawn out of the blond. "Too tired to be shy."

Ness rolled his eyes and headed down the stairs. Lucas followed closely behind him. He knew the way to the cafeteria, but it was best to be with his veteran. There were probably rules in the cafeteria that he didn't know about. Maybe they had to pay for the foot. He had a little bit of DP left, but he didn't think the people here would accept that.

Once they reached the cafeteria, Lucas spotted Red. The boy looked like a zombie as he stared down at his food. It looked like the same bland stuff that Lucas had been eating the other day. It looked like that was what they ate at every meal. Fun…

"Morning Red," Lucas grumbled to the boy. Red grunted right back. At the moment, they had the unbreakable bond of two people who really needed more sleep.

"Morning Luc…" Red mumbled under his breath.

"Well, aren't you two happy?" Ness' cheerful tone was like poison to the two other boys. He got a sleepy glare form Red. Lucas could at least tolerate his behaviour, Red was much worse off than the other boy. He looked like he didn't even get a wink of sleep.

"Yeah, you would be grouchy too if you roommate was Pikachu," the trainer huffed. "He must have zapped me a good five times before he showed me to the room and then… And then he took the bed."

Lucas raised an eyebrow at him. "Aren't there supposed to be two beds? I mean, there is in me and Ness' room."

The Pokemon trainer rubbed his eyes sleepily. He proceeded to give Lucas and exasperated look. "Do you have any clue what a Pikachu is?"

"Oh don't blame him for not knowing. He doesn't come from your world." The black haired PSI user patted his blond counterpart on the back. He was trying to be reassuring, but he just ended up annoying the other boy. Lucas really wasn't in the mood to be patted right now.

"Yeah, whatever." Red yawned and took a few bites of his food. "A Pikachu is an electric type Pokemon. They are about a foot long. He originally had a small bed close to the door, but he decided he wanted mine instead."

Lucas heard a little laugh, and turned to give his black haired friend a glare. To be honest, though, he found this situation just as funny as Ness did. He wasn't going to laugh in his friend's face though. As such, the blond gave Ness a soft punch to the arm.

"Ouch! What was that for?" his roommate complained. "It's not like I was the one that kicked him out of bed."

"No, but you don't have to laugh about it." Lucas crossed his arms and frown to the other PSI user.

"Fine, sorry, sorry." Ness rolled his eyes. "But tell me, Ed, did you sleep in the bed meant for Pikachu?"

"No, he won't let me have that one either. I ha-" Red forced himself awake. "Did you just call me Ed?"

Ness looked rather surprised. "That's your name, right?"

Now it was Lucas' turn to laugh. He nearly fell over as all the air left him. Despite how easy it would have been mishear Red's name, it was still funny it happened to Ness. He was such an airhead sometimes. The blond boy finally stopped himself and just shook his head at Ness. As soon as the black haired boy noticed this, he blushed in embarrassment.

"It's Red! Red! Like the colour!" the trainer yelled. A few people turned to look at him. When he realized this, he turned and gave them a dirty looked. Nobody wanted to break the rules on the second day, so no fights started. The boy was lucky, considering he was the only person here who couldn't fight on his own.

"Sorry, sorry. I thought you said Ed yesterday. I guess I should have been listening more." The mistaken boy gave Red and apologetic smile. "Now, Red, you gonna go on with the story?"

"Yeah, fine, whatever. I forgive you." The trainer gave another yawn. "Pikachu wouldn't let me have the little bed either. I wouldn't fit on it anyway. Lucky for me, they had little beds for my Pokémon. Charizard was okay with sharing, so we both used his bed. He's kind of a cuddler though, so I didn't get much sleep. I got some bruises though."

Lucas hissed sympathetically at the last bit. He was about to call up some of his healing PSI when Ness grabbed his hand. The other boy gave him a stern look.

"No PSI outside of battle. Not even support PSI. Sorry Luc. I should have told you that rule last night. Telepathy and mind reading is fine, but since everyone else's powers are restricted, it goes for us too. Not fair, but I guess that's as close to fair as they can get."

The hatted saviour gave a little shrug. Lucas looked to him with a little bit of annoyance but didn't make a fuss of it. It wasn't Ness' fault. That's how the rules went. As much as the blond wished he could help his friend, he wasn't able to. Once again, there was no point asking for the impossible. The boy called his PSI back. All he could do was offer Red a compassionate look.

"Don't worry about it," the trainer responded. "I've gotten worse bruises me. It's not like it's the end of the world. The fact you wanted to help makes me feel a lot better on its own."

"Thanks Red…" Lucas looked down at the table. "Umm, is it alright to ask where your Pokémon are right now? I thought they'd be here eating with you."

"They're in their balls right now. I was going to let them out after I finished eating, since they can be a little difficult to look after when I'm not giving them my full attention. I'd normally trust them not to get into trouble, but they don't know this place yet and I don't want them getting lost." The trainer brought out three Pokeballs. "Though, if you guys were eating here too, I would be able to let them out."

His true intentions didn't go unnoticed. Unlike Lucas, he didn't have a friendly veteran that he could eat lunch with. Instead, he was assigned to an angry electric mouse. He must have been rather lonely. Lucas looked to his veteran. He noticed it unnerved Ness a bit to see him asking for permission.

"Of course we're gonna sit with him, Luc. We're not rude!" The black haired PSI user seemed to take this as some kind of insult. "First we should get some food, though. Come on. I'll show you the ins and outs of the lunch line."

Ness grabbed Lucas' arm and began to pull him towards what looked to be a counter. There wasn't a line anymore, so the blond didn't get why it was called a lunch line. At least that told him where he could get his food.

There were two identical plates waiting for the boys when they got to the counter. Ness picked up one and gestured for his blond counterpart to pick up the other.

"I know they don't look very good," he began. "But that's all they serve here. It's supposed to be perfectly made so it gives you the exact amount of energy that you need for your size, age, species and level of fitness. It kind of stinks though. It doesn't have any taste and the texture is not too nice. Don't worry, you don't have to eat this stuff all the time. I'll show you to the kitchen during the tour. That's where most people make their food. I was feeling lazy today, though."

"Says the only guy who isn't half asleep," came a bitter reply from the blond of the duo.

"Oh shut up." Ness took is plate back over to the table where Red was. Lucas grabbed his own plates and joined the two dark haired boys. By this point, Red hand almost finished his meal. He was currently playing around with the rest of it. He didn't have enough appetite left to finish it. Once the other two boys sat down, Red released his Pokémon.

"Watch out, they steal," Red teased. He picked up his trusty Squirtle and offered her the remains of the food. The Pokémon was happy to finish it off. The other two, however, were not.

("How come she gets to eat and we don't?") Ivysaur huffed loudly. Though she could only say her name, but PSI users were able to pick up what she was saying.

("Playing favouritism isn't very nice. If you keep that up, I'll have to knock these loser's blocks around for a while,") Charizard taunted. He smacked the grass type with his tail to prove what he was capable of. She responded by smacking up upside the head with one of her vines.

"No fighting you two. And don't you start to gloat either, Squirtle. I love you all equally, but Squirtle is the only one with table manners. Besides, I owe her. She was the only one that didn't get kidnapped during the incident, remember? She had to work twice as hard as you two." the trainer scolded. He looked over the other two. Under his glares, they quickly fell in line.

"I didn't realize you were psychic," Ness comment. When Red gave him a confused looked, he continued. "Well, I assumed cause you can understand them and all."

"Oh, I don't understand them. I've just been their trainer for so long that we don't need words to communicate." The trainer grinned cockily. That faded when he cause Ivysaur trying to steal from Lucas' plate and had to shoo her away. "We used to have this talk every morning at breakfast. They are pretty bad with people, but what can a trainer do. You gotta love your Pokémon for who they are."

Lucas smiled at the other boy's comment. He really must be close to his Pokémon. If everyone in his home was that kind, it would be a wonderful paradise. With that in mind, the blond began to eat his food. It was a little slimy and completely tasteless, but it was something. Using PSI took a lot of energy, and eating was one of the best ways to get the energy he lost back. Even if it was crap, he'd have to eat it.

"Tomorrow, we are so going to the kitchens. I forgot how much I hated this stuff." Ness sighed as he ate his food. Unlike Lucas and Red, he had experience with this stuff. It took him all of ten seconds to shovel it down his throat. It was a truly impressive display. If he weren't so disgusted, Lucas might have clapped for him.

"There's a kitchen?" the Pokemon trainer asked once he recovered from the shock of Ness' impressive display.

"Didn't Pikachu give you a tour?" Lucas asked in surprise. As he did, he placed the remains of his food on the floor for Charizard, since the giant lizard hadn't tried to steal from him. Besides, he had a soft spot for dragons for some reason. This resulted in him getting an affectionate head-butt that nearly knocked him out of his chair.

"Pikachu doesn't want anything to do with me. As soon as he showed me to the room, he went to sleep. Besides, I couldn't understand him if he tried." Red sighed. "I guess I'll have to figure this place out by myself. It can't be too hard."

Lucas saw a sudden spark in Ness' eyes. For a moment, he feared another baseball rant was coming, but this one seemed more heroic. "Don't worry about that grumpy little puff ball. I was going to take Luc on the tour after breakfast anyway. I can show you guys around as well. I am a three time contestant, after all."

"Well, if you have room for me with all the space your ego takes up, I'd love to take you up on your offer." The trainer stood up. "Where do we take out dishes when they are done?"

"What dishes?" the black hared PSI user asked with a little grin.

The other two boys looked down to where they put their plates and found nothing there. Charizard reeled back in surprise to see the plate he had just eaten off of gone. He tapped the area it had been with his tail a few times and then gave Red a confused look.

"This place is weird…" the trainer muttered.

"You can say that again," Lucas agreed. He saw a smile form on Red's lips and frown. "I don't mean literally."

Ness stood up and gestured for the other two to do the same. They followed him down the hall. Having been here for a few days, they knew most of the first floor. What they needed from the boy was for him to show them around to the upper floors. Ness was more than happy to skip this one. The only really important areas were the Brawl room, which they had all been shown to before, the cafeteria, and the main hall. At least, these were the only rooms they were allowed in. The others were for the staff and Master Hand himself.

"I'll show you guys to my favourite room in the house first," the veteran called to the other two as they made their way up the stairs. Lucas started to get a little excited. Maybe it was a library, where he could learn a whole bunch of interesting things. No, given this was Ness, he bet it was a room with an indoor baseball field. He feared for his sanity if he had to hear any more of that accursed sport.

It wasn't a baseball field he wanted to show them to, though. It was something just as predictable though. There was a large kitchen with all manners of cook utensils and what looked like a few pieces of high tech equipment. Of course this was Ness' favourite room. After seeing him eat, neither of the two newcomers was surprised.

"You can use this place at any time. Basic supplies like eggs, milk, cheese, and bread are always provided. If you want something fancier, you'll have to pay points. It's not very expensive, but it builds up over time," Ness explained.

"Food anyways does, especially if you're feeding three greedy Pokémon," Red joked. He reached up and scratched Charizard's head after saying that, just to show he wasn't trying to hurt their feelings.

"There should be free Pokemon food here for you are well. They wouldn't charge you for something so important." With that said, Ness walked up to each of the piece of cooking ware and explained what it did. The process took a few minutes. Red didn't seem to appreciate it very much, but Lucas was glad he was being told. He didn't know what most of them did.

"Unlike most of the rooms in this place, if you make a mess here, you have to clean up, got it?" Ness explained. "It's cause it's a privilege and all. It's also something that can be taken away as a punishment."

The two newcomers nodded. Seeing they understood, the group moved onto the next room. This one wasn't one of Ness' favourites. It was one Lucas would like, though. It was covered wall to wall in different books.

"Here you can learn more about your abilities and expand on them. Nobody really uses it, since we all know ourselves pretty well. You can't read about anyone else, though." To prove his point, Ness went over to the bookshelf and reached for a book labeled Samus. As a result, he got a small shook. "Damn, I forgot how much that hurts… Don't forget, if you don't show your identification, you'll get shocked even going for your own books."

"Identification?" the newcomers asked in unison. This caused Ness to jump.

"Oh! Shit! I forgot to tell Luc about that!" He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "It's a good thing Brawls don't start today, or you guys would be in big trouble. Your identification is your lifeblood here. You can't do much without it." He pulled out the little card Lucas saw yesterday. "Without it, you can't even get into your own room. I guess Red's gonna have to find Pikachu later. Anyway, if you lose this thing, go to Master Hand right away. If someone else gets a hold of it, it gets really bad. They can do a bunch of awful things and you'll get blamed."

"I am not going to like having to ask Pikachu for help…" Red sighed loudly. "Do my Pokémon require identification as well?"

"Nope, just you. Any teams only require one person have it. I found that out last year with the Ice Climbers. It was really awkward when one of them went to have a shower, though." Ness gave a little laugh at the memory. "I suggest you guys all stick together."

("So much for getting to use the Lady's Room on our own,") Squirtle commented with a little sigh. Ivysaur placed a vine on the other female Pokémon's back with compassion. ("It's alright. We normally bath with Red anyway.")

Lucas wrinkled up his nose. "Please, Squirtle that is too much information."

Red looked to him with surprise. "I keep forgetting you're a psychic. I guess that means Ness can understand them too?"

"Yep. And it really was too much information," Ness shook his head at the blue turtle creature. "I'm surprised you knew about that, though. I didn't think you were paying attention to me during that final fight."

"I wasn't. Lucas just never shut up about you." The trainer grinned when he saw Lucas was shaking his head rapidly. If the blond thought that would stop him from blabbing, he knew nothing of the Pokémon trainer. "It was always hatted saviour this, hatted saviour that… Sometimes I would think he was your stalker or something."

Ness made a whistling noise. "Second day of the tournament and I already have a stalker. That's gotta be a new record. Don't worry Luc, I know you were just worried about me. I won't judge you. We hatted saviours are very open about these things."

Lucas narrowed his eyes. He didn't want Ness to know about that. Now he was never going to live it down. He could already imagine the mocking. Red seemed to be enjoying his embarrassment though. Lucas hoped he enjoyed pain, because he stomped on the taller boy's foot as hard as he was able.

"Eep!" the trainer yelped. "I deserved that, but I don't regret what I did."

"Have you no compassion, Red?" Lucas whined playfully.

"Not for humans." The trainer gave Lucas a little wink. Both psychics took notice of this. Lucas only rolled his eyes, but Ness got a good chuckle out of it.

"Now, if you two are done with your lover's spat, let's head to the next room. I don't really like this one, but it's important."

Ness led them out of the room and to one with double doors. Lucas raised an eyebrow. It was at the end of the hall. Considering the design of this place, that meant it was either extremely important or huge. When Ness opened the door the blond realized it was both.

This room was about the same size of the cafeteria. It was lined with all manners of weapons. Most looked dangerous. Some looked a little strange. Lucas could have sworn he saw a Mr. Saturn on the wall as well. He diced he must be seeing things. A Mr. Saturn wasn't a weapon. At least, he didn't think they were. Maybe he should be a little more open minded.

"This is the training room. You can either train with another brawler or use a sand bag. Don't worry, if you choose to train with another brawler, neither of you will be seriously hurt thanks to Master Hand's magic. You just might bounce off the roof a few times." Ness gave them a somewhat sadistic grin. Yep, Lucas no longer had any desire to train with him.

"What good are sandbags going to do?" Red asked. "I mean, we use them back home for training, but with how strong everyone here is, they'd just fall apart."

"Like everything else here, the sandbags are special. They're set to endure whatever you can dish out. If you can destroy one, it means you've become stronger than you were. Or that you're having a good day." Ness pulled out his card. "You guys want an example?"

"Sounds good." Lucas shot him a smile. It would be good to see Ness fight again.

("Or we could watch the boy in the corner.") Ivysaur's comment caused the two psychics to over to the corner. Red quickly followed suit.

Until now they hadn't noticed the other occupant of the room. Now that they saw him, it was surprising they haven't. He stood out. Despite there being so many people here, Lucas recognized him. He was the green hatted boy that turned himself into a statue yesterday. It would be interesting to see how he fought. Or at least, that was what Lucas thought until the other boy started. It was vicious. He cut into sandbag in no time flat. Though Ness said that the sandbags would be as strong as the person attacking them, the ones the boy cut into fell apart as soon as he cut them.

There was something horrific about a boy holding a sword. Lucas didn't understand why this made him feel so sad. The scene was only missing a few elements. The sword didn't glow with lightning and the boy lacked a mask. Lucas didn't know why he thought of that. He didn't want to think of it. When he tried to push himself to remember why, he suddenly felt ill.

"Wow, you're pretty good with that-" Ness cut off when he finally got a good look at the boy. He ran over with excitement. "Young Link! I thought they said you weren't going to be coming back this tourney! That's great! We can-"

He cut off again. Ness had caught view of the boy's eyes and realized he'd made a horrible mistake. Young Link didn't have those strange cat eyes. This boy was someone completely different.

"Toon…"

The black haired PSI user inched closer to him. "What was that?"

"I said Toon," the green hatted boy grumbled. Even though he wasn't searching the boy's mind, Lucas picked up this boy's anger and… Fear? Why was he scared? "My name is Toon Link, not Young Link. Get it right!"

Ness tooka step back. "Calm down there buddy. I didn't realize. I just saw you and thought-"

"No, no you didn't. You didn't think at all!" Toon Link sheathed his sword. He shot everyone in the group a glare. "I'm not the Young Link you're looking for. Good day!"

With that, he stomped off, leaving the little crowd a little shocked. It didn't seem like Ness did anything wrong, besides use the wrong name. Lucas searched the other's minds, well besides Ness' since he couldn't, but found no answers as to why this boy would be so upset.

"Well, that was weird…" Ness finally managed to say. "What was his problem?"

"You'd know better than either of us," Red commented. "We've never met him before. Well, beside during the Subspace stuff. He's not a vet?"

"Nope, that guy's a newcomer." The black haired psychic shook his head. "Well, speaking of newcomers, let's continue the tour. I'll show you another of my favourite rooms next…"

Ness trailed off. Despite not being able to read his mind, Lucas could tell Ness still had Toon Link on his mind. He had the feeling that his hatted saviour would be distracted for the rest of this tour.


	3. Some Toon

**Shifting the POV a little for this chapter. Instead of Lucas, we're going to focus on Ness. Chapter from Ness' POV will have a title starting with 'Some' and ones from Lucas will start with 'The'. I'm not sure if I'll do chapter from anyone else's POV yet, though.**

**This chapter ended up a bit shorter than the others. Writing Ness is a bit harder.**

* * *

Ness had been thinking about the encounter with Toon Link for days now. Three days had passed since he gave Lucas and Red the tour of the mansion. For everyone else, it must have seemed like everything was good, but it wasn't to Ness. Young Link had been one of his best friends. In fact, the boy had been his first friend here.

The first tournament had been extremely lonely for the PSI user. There was nobody else close to his age. Everyone either treated him like a kid or ignored him. Young Link was different. He was a great friend. The blond hyrulian had filled the gap in his heart that his friends at home had left. Ness had been devastated to hear the other boy would not be continuing with him. They had come to terms with this fact though.

Seeing Toon Link was like tearing open an old wound in his chest. The boy looked so much like Young Link, it was crazy. He wanted him to be Young Link so badly, but the boy wasn't. Their first meeting showed that much. No matter how upset he was, YL would never have snapped at him like that. This made the young PSI user feel even worse. It was like the boy was an evil twin of his old friend.

"Thinking about Toon Link again?"

The voice snapped Ness out of his thoughts. He'd forgotten he was in the middle of making steak with Lucas. After he'd when on about it for longer than either of them would have liked, the blond insisted on trying some, though mostly to shut his friend up. He claimed that if it was good enough for Ness, it was good enough for him. The blond's total trust in him always seemed to warm the black haired psychic's heart. He supposed that was part of saying someone's life.

Lucas, as a fellow PSI user, was unable to read Ness' mind, but that didn't make him any less perceptive. It was like he was trying to get into the other boy's head. That was Ness' fault if he was, though. He never should have let that thing about Pokey, or Porky or whatever the hell he went by these day, slip out. He had just felt so bad. He knew Pokey. He knew that his old friend wouldn't just be content with turning Lucas into a trophy. He wanted the boy to suffer.

"Ness! You're spacing out again!"

Crap! He had to get back on topic. The black haired boy shook his head. He looked down to the steak he was seasoning. Or at least trying to. He put way too much on this one. He supposed that meant it would be his. His mother would kill him if she found out he was giving badly done steak to a friend. They had some pride in their family recipe!

"Sorry Luc. You're right though. I was thinking about Toon Link." Ness sighed. "I guess I was hoping we could be friends, but since we got off to such an awful start, I don't think we can be."

"I'm sure you can," the blond of the duo went back to flipping his omelettes. Lucas insisted if he tried steak that Ness try his family recipe as well. "You're a good guy. I bet you could make friend with even the most cold hearted person."

"Already did that." His tone was joking, but Ness really didn't feel good about Lucas' comment. He wondered what the blond would have thought if he knew how close he and Pokey had been once.

"Oh, and who was that?" Lucas tipped his head to the side in that oddly curious way.

"Sorry, friend, but if I told you, I'd have to kill you." Ness got a good laugh at him own joke. This blond companion didn't seem to find it nearly as funny. He gave Ness a little pout. It was all fun and games though. Both of them knew this, so there was no need to be insulted. After a second, though, Lucas blinked in surprise. His face turned a slight shade of red.

Ness raised a brow to his blond friend. "Luc? Something wrong? You look like you're about to turn into a tomato."

The blond only got redder at his friend's comment. "Y-you called me your friend. I mean, I thought we were friends, but I wasn't sure."

"Of course we're friends! We're friends forged in the flames of battle, brothers of the shared washroom!" The black haired hero raised the brush he was using on the steak high up into the air as he gave a dramatic and cheesy speech. His eyes flicked over to Lucas. He was glad he could get a smile out of the shy boy. "Besides, only my friends get to taste my steaks."

Lucas rolled his eyes. He moved the omelette that he'd been working on from the frying pan onto a plate. He'd already finished one. Tonight's dinner was going to be steak and omelettes. If this worked out, they could probably do this every night until Ness was sick of omelettes and Lucas was sick of steak. Of course, they could never be sick of their own trademark favourite foods.

"At the pace you're going, we're only going to be having omelettes," the blond teased. Despite his light tone, Ness knew the boy just wanted to eat. It was a little late for dinner. They had been having a good time with Red, watching over some of Ness' odl brawls in Melee, and had lost track of time. The trainer had been the first to leave and get some food. It left Lucas and Ness to make some stuff for themselves. Red had just been lazy and ate the cafeteria crap.

"I would be grilling an amazing steak right now, if you weren't already using the stove," Ness argued. He knew it was a useless comment though.

"There are three stoves and we're the only ones in here. Hurry up and grill your steak. I don't want the omelettes to get cold." For a shy boy, Lucas could be pushy when he wanted to be. Then again, Ness liked his friend's pushy side.

"Fine, fine." Ness took the two steaks and began to pan fry them. "I wish we had a grill to use. It tastes so much better that way. I guess I'll just have to show you the second best steak in the world."

"I think I've seen enough today. I've already seen the world's biggest ego." The blond grinned evilly. "Your steak might be good but I'll have you converted to omelettes by the end of the day."

"And you say my ego is big!" Ness laughed. The two were content to be silent for the rest of the time that it took Ness to cook up his steaks. The equipment here was good and so it didn't take very long to make his food. The black haired boy had become the master of steak during his travels, trying and always failing to perfectly mimic his mother's steak recipe. He was close, though. In a few more years he might even surpassed her.

"I hope you like medium rare cause that's what I cooked," Ness called to his friend. He brought the plate with his steaks over to the ones holding the omelettes. He placed one of the pieces of meat on eat plate before putting the used dis by the sink.

"The steak is rare? Does that mean you had to pay money for it? I didn't realize! I should pay you back when I-"

"Luc, Luc, no. That's not what rare means in concern to meat. It just means how thoroughly I cooked it." Ness got a little chuckle. He kept forgetting Lucas came from a different world. It felt like they were from the same place, but Lucas had trouble understanding a lot of terms. He was almost as bad as Poo, Ness' unfortunately named friend from his journey. If Ness could teach Poo, he could teach a naïve blond.

"Well, as long as it's edible, I'll be happy." They took their plates over to a nearby table. This was mostly for people to prepare things at. The kitchen was always busy around meal times. It couldn't fit everyone. However, late eaters like Lucas and Ness could use the table. That worked out well for them, except that their stomachs were growling.

The two PSI users went for their favourite foods first. As they caught the other doing so, they both frowned. Lucas probably wanted Ness to eat the omelette first since they were getting a little cold. Normally, the black haired boy would have made a deal. A bite of omelette for a bite of steak. It was his fault for zoning out, though. If he had been more attentive, their foods would have been done at the same time.

The omelette was surprisingly good. Ness had never been a big fan of breakfast food, but it seemed Lucas had a gift for cooking. Lucas, his mother, Paula… What was it with blonds and being good cooks? If Ness had taken after his mother more than his father, would he also have been an amazing cook? He would never know.

"You're really good at cooking omelettes," the veteran commented, his mouth still full. "Still, it's nothing compared to my steak. Go ahead and finish that omelette. You're not going to want it after you've eaten my steak~"

Lucas narrowed his eyes. With his light blue eyes, Lucas could be extremely intimidating when he did things like that. Ness wouldn't make down though. Eventually the blond decided to take him up on this challenge and took a bite from the steak. He didn't look disappointed, but didn't have the look Ness was hoping for. He didn't have that 'died and when to heaven' look.

"It's not bad…" The blond clearly didn't want to disappoint Ness. "It's actually really, really good. But…"

"Different people, different tastes?" Ness suggested. He got a nod from the blond. "It's alright. I used to have this friend who absolutely hated steak. No matter what I said, he wouldn't even consider changing his mind. He liked just about every other food though. I didn't think any less of him because he had a bad taste in food."

Lucas noticed his wording right away. "Had?"

"We don't talk anymore. I thought he was dead until recently…" Seeing Pokey in the Abandoned Zoo was a real shock for Ness. He'd thought the blond boy had died. Time travel wasn't safe for humans, they all knew that. Yet Pokey had still tried it. They all thought his rash decision had killed him. Even though they found a letter from him, they thought he could have sent it before. Of course it was Pokey, the boy that wanted the world to end, who survived time travel. Life wasn't fair.

Lucas gave him a compassionate, knowing look. For a moment, Ness had thought his friend knew who he was talking about. No, the more he looked into it, the more the black haired veteran realized that the look that the blond was giving him was one of empathy. He had been through that situation himself. Soon Lucas' expression changed to slight confusion.

"That seems familiar…. I don't know why though." The blond PSI user began to play with his food like the thought made him lose his appetite. This made his black haired counterpart feel a little bad. He wondered what Lucas was remembering. He wished he could ask.

As Ness was about to ask if he could have Lucas' steak, the door opened. There were over thirty people living and eating in this house. It could have been anyone, but it wasn't. Ness just didn't seem to have any luck today. First he'd started zoning out and now Toon Link was here. He wondered if this was fate trying to get him to make up with this strange boy already. Ness didn't care what fate wanted. He wasn't ready yet.

Toon Link met the veteran's gaze for a moment. He had been perfectly calm when he entered the room and now he was absolutely terrified. It wasn't the fear of some great monster. Knowing the Links, this boy could face that down easily. No, this was a social fear. The fear of rejection. Ness furrowed his brows. Didn't this boy know his he didn't try, he couldn't be accepted. Still, the black haired boy found it too awkward to actually say something.

"A-ah, hello Toon Link." Oh yes Lucas. Ness finally understood why this boy was a hero. He was hero of dinner time, saving Ness from a very awkward staring contest. "Sorry we haven't cleaned up our messes yet. But, ummm, there's so left over steak if you want it. I couldn't finish all of mine, so…"

Toon Link looked away from the other blond. Ness could feel the boy's mind ticking away. He wanted the steak, but he didn't want to say it. He was still very scared. Lucas' kindness could be a trap. Though the black haired PSI user could look deeper into the other boy's thoughts and find out more answers, he wouldn't. That wasn't right. People had the right to privacy, even if they were blond haired jerks with social issues.

"I… I guess I can try some. It smells good." Toon Link's stomach growled at that comment. The cat eyed boy's face turned bright red. "I am just really hungry."

"So were we. We forgot to eat lunch today." You learn something new every day. Apparently Lucas was a very good liar, because he didn't even flinch when he told an outright lie. They'd eaten lunch, even if it was only a few sandwiches. Still, the lie soothed the horrible fear that wafted off of the green hatted boy like a bad smell. "There's no need to be embarrassed. The steak is really good too. Just grab a plate and you can have it."

He needed to say no more. Toon Link moved quickly to get a plate and some steak. Ness was a little proud. Here was a boy who knew good food when it was presented to him. He was starting to worry that not appreciating steak for the wonder that it was also happened to be a blond trait. Speaking of blonds, Lucas was currently scrapping the remains of his steak onto Toon Link's plate.

"Thanks…" Toon Link whispered out. He took a cut out of the steak and took a bite. There it was. The look that Ness had wanted to see from Lucas found itself on the other blond's face instead. His eyes lit up. "Wow, this is amazing! Did you make this?!"

"Nope, but I did." Ness raised his hand lazily. If Toon Link had been starting to open up there, he closed his heart down right away as soon as he saw who he was complimenting. If he had cat ears to match those cat eyes, they would have flattened.

"Thank you…" Toon Link's heart really wasn't in thanking Ness. Maybe if he was a little nicer, Toon Link would start to open up again. He must have been upset over being called Young Link yesterday. Ness would be too if someone did that to him. However, the thought of Young Link brought back that same stab of sadness. That was a friend who he would never see again.

"Young Link liked my steak too…"

Well that was the worst thing that he could have said. Now Toon Link was scared and angry again. He scrunched up his nose and looked away. The green hatted boy had nothing more to say. He simply picked up his dish and left the room. The young PSI users both let out a sigh.

"You're the biggest airhead I've ever met…" Lucas muttered under his breath.

"Well at least it can't get worse."

* * *

Ness' next encounter with Toon Link was even worse.

It was another three days later. From that time that they'd moved into the same room, Ness had almost always had Lucas at his side. He spent a lot of time with Red too, but he wasn't as close with the trainer as he was becoming with Lucas. It seemed like the two of them just clicked. They had similar powers , which helped, but there were lots of other things that made them great friends. Sometimes Luc reminded him of his friend Jeff. Lucas and Jeff were both shy blonds.

Red was Lucas' friend first. In the last few days, Ness had been picking up irritation from the other boy directed at him. He probably thought Ness was trying to replace him. Of course, a person could have lots of friends, but they only had one best friend. Ness' best friend position was open again. It would be nice to be that close with Lucas, but Red knew him first. The trainer was probably feeling left out. Because of this, even though Red and Lucas invited him to go flying on Charizard with them, Ness decided to stay back and train.

He'd been beating up a sandbag for a good twenty minutes without doing any real damage. Ness was in top shape right now. He figured it would be a long time before he'd be able to break the sandbags again. Maybe if he had a human sparring partner…

"I should ask Luc if he wanted to practice our PSI together sometime…" It would be interesting to see exactly how similar they were. There had to be a few tricks they could teach each other. For now, he was close to done with his practice. A sandbag was good for swings and power testing, but it didn't do anything for dodging or reading an opponent. That was something he would have to figure out on his own.

Finally finished with his sandbag, Ness decided to get something to eat. He head to the door, not realizing someone was already in the door way. He collided with Toon Link, sending the other boy down onto the ground.

"W-watch where you're going!" the boy snapped, more out of fear than anything. "What is your problem with me? Did I do something to you?!"

Ness was hardly surprised by the cat eyed boy's temper by this point. He was getting really tired of it, actually. The boy just rolled his eyes.

"If one of us has a problem with the other, it's you that' got a problem with me," Ness scoffed. This didn't make the boy on the ground any happier. Toon Link pushed himself up and brushed off the back of his tunic.

"You know what? I'm done with this. Can't you just leave me alone?" Toon Link clearly thought they'd run into each other more times than they had.

"You're the one that keeps running into me!" the black haired PSI user ended up yelling. He didn't want to let him emotions get the best of him, but he was a teenage boy. Resisting his emotions wasn't what he was built for. "Why do you keep starting fights?"

"I'm not starting fights, I'm just trying to get you to leave me alone!" the cat eyed boy shot back. "If you want a fight, I'm more than happy to give you one, though."

"Wow, only a week in and already having an illegal brawl. That's gotta be a new record." Ness crossed his arms and shook his head. "If you want to get sent home, fine wit-"

"Not an illegal brawl, a sparring match," the other boy interrupted. "You said yourself that people can spar in this room legally. We can just settle things that way!"

"You were eavesdropping on me?" The black haired boy's frown only deepened.

"How couldn't I? You were announcing it for the room to hear," Toon Link answered. "Now, come on, are you up for a sparring match or not?"

"I'm up for it, but you better be ready to get your ass kicked." Ness headed over to the sparring matts. He got the feeling this was a bad idea. He was already pretty tired from all of the training with the sandbag. However, Toon Link was clearly frazzled. As long as the PSI user could keep his mind together, he should be able to outsmart the other boy.

"Your bat versus my sword sound good?" the other boy asked as he pulled out said sword.

"All the easier to beat you," Ness commented. This got Toon Link even angrier, which was what he wanted. As soon as Ness got his baseball bat out of his bag, the match began.

Toon Link was much faster than Ness expected. Seeing his power the other day, he thought the boy would be strong but slow like most of the powerhouses. No, this boy had to be as fast as him, if not even faster. The sword went right past Ness as he jumped back. A second slower and he could have gotten seriously injured.

The PSI user called on his telepathy. It was simply part of how he fought. The other boy would just have to accept it. Using this, he increased the strength in his legs and arms, as well as toughened his bat. It wasn't anything close to Strength Up, one of the PSIs he was forbidden from using here, but it was something. This allowed him to fight on par with most of the sword users. Without this, he would have gone through more bats than Master Hand could make.

The green hatted sword's man was closing the gap between the two of them again. He aimed an overhead slash at Ness. The range was too far for the other boy to dodge, so he'd have to block. He immediately regretted blocking. The force of the sword on his bat made him flinch. His opponent noticed this and aimed a kick at his leg. Ness was able to move that leg out of was before it was hit. He took this chance to slam himself against Toon Link and force the slightly smaller boy back.

"You done warming up yet?" Ness taunted. This seemed to annoy the other boy more. The cat eyed boy recovered faster than Ness expected. He closed the space between them quickly. Three furious slashes came at his front. Ness blocked all three. They lacked the power of the first one he blocked. It quickly became clear this wasn't Link's intention, though. He slipped right past Ness while the boy prepared for a fourth slash. A much stronger attack was coming for the PSI user's back. It was too fast to block. He had no choice but to throw himself to the ground to dodge.

In an attempt at a quick recovery, Ness pulled himself into a roll. He wasn't quite prepared, though. He lost his grip on his bat as he rolled. It ended up in the space between himself and Link. The fight wasn't over though. Even without a bat, Ness had a few tricks up his sleeve. The green hatted boy quickly saw his resolve and went to continue with the fight.

He charged Ness with the intent to end the battle. This tunnel vision of his ended up being his downfall. The hatted psychic ducked up Toon Link's blade. He grabbed the wrist that held the blade and dug his fingers in. He would have to thank Poo for teaching him about the nerves there when he got home. The cat eyed boy didn't expect this and his blade fell to the floor. Using the shock of this, Ness dropped down and tossed the blond boy over his shoulder.

Toon Link ended up sprawled on the ground on the other side of the sparring mats. He pulled him up quickly. Ness used this chance to kick away the blade. It would take Toon Link about the same time to reach his blade as it would for Ness to get his bat. However, he under estimate the other boy's dislike for him.

The hyrulian boy came at him quickly with the balled fist. Ness managed to catch this one. His eyes narrowed. So this was how it was going down. They were both strong boys and around the same age. This would be nothing like getting into a fist fight with someone like Captain Falcon. He should be able to hold his own.

The PSI user used this chance to ram his knee into the other boy's gut. Toon Link coughed loudly. The PSI user then brought his hand together and was about to slam down on the other boy's head when he felt something connect with his own gut. The blond boy had rammed his shield into it. This sent them both down onto the ground.

Once again, Toon Link recovered too quickly. Ness was too tired to go on. The other boy managed to pin him down to the ground. When he saw the look in the PSI users eyes, he realized the fight was over. Both boys were panting. Despite the fight being over, the swordsman didn't get off of the other boy.

"Why do you hate me?" Toon Link asked as soon as he got enough air to. This surprised the other boy. "I didn't do anything to you, but you guys all want me gone. I know I'm not Young Link, but I worked hard to get here…"

"Who said we wanted you gone?" Ness inquired from under the other boy.

"Ganondorf. He said that you and some of the other young brawlers were trying to petition Master Hand to get me removed so your friend can come back." The other boy looked down. Suddenly the source of his fear and anger became clear to Ness.

"Well Ganondorf is a big fat liar, he probably just wanted to get you in trouble with the other young smashers. We found out Young Link was getting cut at the end of the last tournament. You being here has nothing to do this that." He tried to offer the other boy a smile, but he felt too tired for that.

"So… You don't think I'm just his replacement?" the blond asked nervously. "You're not going to hate me for it, or try and get me kicked out?"

"The only reason I'd do that is cause you've been an ass to me up until this point." Ness rolled his eyes at the memory. "You're Toon Link, not Young Link. If you hadn't obsessed over the similarities, I never would have gotten upset at you in the first place."

The blond boy was silent for a bit. He proceeded to push himself off Ness. Both boys stayed on the ground too. Though they were both is good shape, neither really had the will or energy to get up at the moment.

"I'm sorry…" Toon Link finally managed to say. "I thought that you hated me. I really didn't want to get sent home. My sister and grandma were so excited over the fact I got here. Plus, my friend Tetra would kill me if she knew I got sent back so soon… I guess I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. I was horrible to you. I shouldn't expect forgiveness from you, but I want you to know I won't hold a grudge now. Once again, I really am sorry for being so stupid."

"Nah, your biggest fault here is trusting Ganondorf." Ness placed his hand on the cat eyed boy's shoulder. "We can start over and pretend that none of this ever happened. Just try to be a little nicer, okay?"

"Thank you Ness." The blond boy gave him a nervous smile. "I promise, I'll be much nicer from now on. I'm not normally that mean and nasty."

"I figured." The psychic finally pushed himself up out of his seat. "I hope we can become friends."

Toon Link looked away for a moment, a slight blush on his face. "Speaking of friends… Do you know if there is any more of that steak you made for your blond friend this morning?"

Ness narrowed his eyes. Now he would have to share the steak supply. This was why he deemed this encounter worse.


	4. PokePuffs

**I forgot to mention this one the last few chapters, I do go back through and read the chapter afterwards for signs of any spelling mistakes, but I'm not all that good at it. I end up missing a lot. I can't really help it. I'm sorry.**

**Anyway, two more chapters until the fighting starts. Or at least that's probably how it's gonna be.**

* * *

Sunlight filtered into Red's sight through Charizard's massive wing. Despite the fact they were very durable, the patagium was still thin enough for the sun to been seen through. It was something like a set of curtain. This thin light was enough to wake up the trainer. On his journey he'd always been going for a good nine hours of sleep every night. These days he was luck if he managed six.

It wasn't that sleeping cuddled next to his Pokémon wasn't nice, it really was, but the problem was that those Pokémon were cuddlers, especially Charizard. When his starter had been a Charmander, Red was the cuddler of the two. At the time, the Pokémon was worried about being abandoned. That was always the problem with receiving a Pokémon from another trainer. He would sooth the Pokémon by saying together twenty four seven. When the fire type's tail set their tent ablaze, they had to sleep sleeping together. They were still together throughout the rest of the day though. Unfortunately, this treatment of the fire type cause him to become unbelievable clingy.

These days Charizard didn't let his tail start fires. He'd gotten so much better with it. The current problem was that he didn't know his own strength. The first night he nearly crushed his trainer when he grabbed him. That didn't even get the boy started on his starter's claws.

Two weeks into the tournament and Red hadn't gotten to use 'his' bed once. Now it belonged to the tiny electric mouse that was curled up there. Oh everyone thought the mouse was so cute and cuddly. They didn't see the evil that lurked beneath. Red didn't like to think bad things about Pokémon, but Pikachu was an exception. He'd never met a Pokémon so vicious and full of himself before, not even Team Rocket's Pokémon!

Thinking of the yellow Pokémon sparked irritation in the trainer. He pushed his dragon like Pokémon's wing off of him and squirmed out of his grip. Feeling Red's warmth leaving, the lizard gave a little whine. On instinct, the trainer reached out and scratched his starter under the chin. Charizard calmed down, but still could not sleep without his trainer in his grip.

The large lizard gave a soft growl. Though Red couldn't understand him, he knew that the fire type wanted to know if they were getting up for breakfast. His trainer nodded to him before getting out of the makeshift bed.

By this point, the two female Pokémon in his party were wide awake. They'd always been early risers, unlike the boy and his Charizard. That was the great thing about a Pokémon journey; there was no school and therefore no reason to wake up early. Well, unless you were the region champion and had to be ready for battle as early as six o'clock in the morning. That was one of the many factors that contributed to the boy leaving that life behind.

"Sorry for making you two wait. I didn't realize how late it was getting," Red apologised in a hushed tone. His eyes flicked to Pikachu, still curled up on the bed. If he woke the veteran smasher up, he'd be sparking for the rest of the day.

Ivysaur gently nudged Red's leg. He felt reassurance in the gesture. Unless his two new friends, the boy wasn't psychic. He couldn't tell what his Pokémon were saying. Their actions had to speak for them. Still, they had been together so long that he could tell what they were trying to say without them needing to. Unlike most trainers, he decided to only travel with three Pokémon so that he could bond with them better.

"You're too nice to me," the trainer mused as he pushed himself up. He headed to the bathroom to change. Pokémon didn't care much about human parts, but he still liked the privacy. It was weird to think of a wild Pokémon possibly seeing him.

Once he was finished, his three Pokémon waited for him expectantly. Today he had promised to start making PokePuffs for the three of them. They were rather difficult to cook, so he'd been putting it off. Still, they kept complaining and complaining about it. Complaints were one of the few things that could pass through any language barrier.

"Did you guys all agree on a flavour?" Red asked. His Pokémon made a nodding gesture. It wasn't like he didn't know which on it was going to be. He was a disaster with mocha, citrus, and mint. That left only the sweet and spice flavours. Unfortunately, all three of Red's Pokemon had a sweettooth. The boy gave a little sigh.

"Call for mocha-"silence"- citrus-" silence "-mint-" silence "-or spice." Red grinned when his Pokémon looked concerned. They hadn't made a sound though. They knew they did, the boy would make them spic flavoured PokePuffs. After all, they were his favourite. "Fine, fine, you guys want sweet don't you?"

The boy regretted it as soon as his Pokémon began to cheer for their favourite snack. They were a lot louder than he meant for them to be. An irritated sound tore through the cheering at Pikachu began to uncurl himself. He didn't even look at any of the other Pokémon. All his fury was placed on his least favourite person in the world. As he assumed earlier, Red would be sparking for the rest of the day.

* * *

The trainer had only just stopped twitching when he got to the kitchen shortly after lunch. Squirtle was still nudging him apologetically. Red didn't blame her, but he was a little bit miffed over the whole thing. Pikachu could have shocked any of them for the sound, but it was only the silent one he went after. Then again, he was glad the mouse didn't select either Squirtle or Charizard. Flying and water types were no good with electricity. He trusted Ivysaur to just shrug it off, but the other two would have been really hurt.

"I'm not mad," he explained to his Pokémon. As he said that, he bent down and rubbed the little turtle Pokémon's head. "You guys really gotta be more careful, though. That little fellow had a nasty temper and I don't think he likes trainers very much. With people like Team Rocket, I'm not surprised, but I am a little sad."

Charizard nudged him. At first he thought it was an affectionate gesture, until he realized his Pokémon was trying to tell him something. The area the fire type had nudged him was right where he kept his Pokeballs. The boy frowned at his starter.

"I'm not going to catch him just so he'll like me!" Red nearly shouted in surprise. His Pokémon gave him the closest thing that a dragon could to a pout. "I doubt I could catch him without a Master Ball anyway. He's the cream of the crop when it comes to Pikachu. Ivysaur might be able to last against him, but you and Squirtle both had type disadvantages. I don't want to risk it. Besides, Ness said that would only make Pikachu hate me more. I'd rather have Pokémon that like me, thank you very much."

Ivysaur tapped him on the leg to get his attention and then gestured towards the direction of Master Hand's office with her head. The message was clear enough. His gentler Pokémon wanted him to report Pikachu for all the pain he'd caused him. Zapping the trainer was against the rules, after all.

"I don't want to get him into trouble. He had to hate people for a reason. Besides, I don't want to look weak, like I can't deal with my own problems. I'll find another way to deal with that. Thanks for trying though, guys." He stopped further suggestions by making it clear he was no longer listening to them. "Now, let's get to making puffs."

The boy went over to the fridge and looked for the berry drawer. There were several, but one of them showed a Pokeball on it. He'd learned the hard way that different worlds had different types of fruit. Only his world grew the berries that he used to make his PokePuffs. He pulled out a bag of some of the sweeter berries and brought them to the counter.

"Charizard, can you get the milk and butter? Ivysaur, flour and sugar please? Oh, and Squirtle, can you get the yeast?" At his request, his Pokemon headed off. It was faster if they all worked together. Still, he was the only one with thumbs and that mean he would have to do the more difficult parts. Once he'd let Ivysaur mix the dough and it ended badly for everyone. He'd gotten the mix all over his mother's kitchen. She wasn't very pleased.

The boy cut up the berries into very fine chunks as the other ingredients piled up next to him. Once he was done, he began to measure out the ingredients. Every once and while, one of his Pokémon would nudge him, trying to get the boy to let them mix it instead. He'd simply ignore them until they went away. He didn't want to be rude about it, but they would just mess it up.

Once the mix was ready, the boy poured it into the molds and placed that in the oven. It only took about forty minutes for them to cook at that temperature. Red could see Charizard making strange gestures. Oh, of course he was trying to help again.

"No, we're going to use the stove. I know you think you can control it, but remember what happened to the marshmallows?" Red wouldn't say his other reason for not letting his dragon like Pokémon do the cooking. Charizard had always been so sensitive about his bad breathe. Anything he cooked with his flames would always sort of carry that smell.

The fire type made a sad noise at his rejection, but he wasn't too disappointed. At least he got his chin scratched again. With his Pokémon soothed for the moment, the trainer set the timer on the stove and started on the icing for the PokePuffs. He'd left some of the berries just for the icing. He knew how much his Pokémon liked the sweet flavour. His Pokémon were getting uneasy by the time he'd finished. Lucky for him, he'd taken so long trying to get that part right, the dough would be ready in ten minutes.

"Remember, they need to cool down for at least five minutes before you eat them, okay?" Red warned his Pokémon. "I know you can handle it, Charizard, but the others will get burned tongues and it's not fair if you all don't start at the same time."

The Puffs were done shortly after that, the three Pokémon whining the whole ten minutes they had to wait away. Red pulled the tray out of the stove and placed them out to cool. He slipped some of the icing between the layers of the puffs and topped each of them off with a berry. The boy noticed a vine coming towards one of the puffs. He grabbed it and frowned at Ivysaur.

"Don't you dare, little thief. I said you have to wait ten minutes." The trainer kept his tone soft. He didn't want her to think he was actually mad.

"You have ten minutes to spare then?"

Red and his Pokémon jumped. They hadn't even heard the door open. Once they turned and saw who was standing there, though, they were hardly surprised. Red would hardly be surprised if the woman at the door was some kind of super spy.

Samus regarded him with the cold stare she gave every smasher. The woman was without a doubt one of the scariest people in this house. Red remembered Ness saying he'd rather soak in the hot springs with Ganondorf and Wario than to get on Samus' bad side. It wasn't that she was a bad person, she was just scary, especially with her suit. The Pokémon trainer never expected to get any of her attention. Yet, here she was, speaking with him.

"Ugh…" Well, didn't he sound all composed? The boy wasn't sure what to say to her. It didn't seem to matter though. The bounty hunter just went on speaking as if he had confirmed he had time to spare.

"Would you four mind accompanying me? I had something I wanted to talk to you about. It's in regards to your roommate." The blond woman turned around and left the room. There was no choice but for the trainer and his Pokémon to follow her.

"Did Pikachu do something? Did he say I did something?" Red asked as they walked through the hall. He didn't know why Pikachu would get Samus of all people involved. Maybe this was just to scare the trainer. It was probably punishment for what had happened that morning.

"It's more a matter of who he is. Since he's your roommate, I thought I should give you fair warning about a few things." They stopped at the library. The room was soundproof and hardly anyone came in there. It was clear to Red that she wanted this talk to be private.

"Is it about why he hates me?" the hatted trainer asked. "I figured it was because he was a Pokémon and I am a Pokémon trainer. It's natural for Pokémon to attack trainers."

"Oh please, it's not like you're the first trainer he's run across." Samus rolled her eyes at him. Things like that made the trainer feel very small. "He probably dislikes you for being a trainer, but there are other reasons too. I wanna hear it from your mouth. Have you been bullying him?"

She was awfully concerned over the matters of two people she barely knew. Or at least he thought she barely knew them. For all Red knew, she might be quite close friends with Pikachu. This could end really badly. The moment this thought came to mind, the trainer began shaking his head furiously.

"No! No! I promise, I would never bully a Pokémon!" he shouted far louder than he intended to. If this had been a real library, he would have been shushed so quickly.

"Then you would bully a person?" Samus asked. Her cold stare turned into a glare. The boy quickly considered self trophication.

"I wouldn't bully anyone!" The boy continued to make a fool of himself by waving his arms all over the place. Noticing his distress, his Pokémon were all ready for a fight. They were stopped by the sight of the female smasher giving them a little smirk.

"I already knew that. I was just playing around. Pikachu has always been a drama queen, but that doesn't stop him from having some right to hate you." The bounty hunter crossed her arms over her chest. "The Subspace problem had its effects on everyone. Pikachu got stuck in a power generator. I guess that set him back a few steps. The last two tournaments have helped him become a little friendlier, but he's back to square one now."

Now the trainer felt bad. When it was just some ambiguous bad thing that had happened to his roommate, he could deal with it. Maybe expecting any kind of friendliness form Pikachu was wrong. It was probably best for the boy to move out as soon as possible. He had wanted to befriend the electric mouse before he did, but there was little hope of that now.

"He'll warm up to you, eventually. Just don't expect any miracles." Samus place a hand on her right hip. "You seem like you're good with Pokémon. He'll learn you don't want to catch him eventually."

"Thank you Miss Samus," the train muttered. His Pokemon followed his example and gave a respectful tip of their heads. The bounty hunter's half smile grew a bit.

"Well, I've filled my part of the deal, so you're free to go now." She made a shooing gesture with her hand, surprising the boy.

"Wait, deal?" He had a bad feeling about this.

"Yeah, Ness told me he'd pay me a hundred smash coins in exchange for getting you out of the kitchen long enough for him to steal one of your cupcakes," the bounty hunter replied. She was already making her way out of the room. Like all the others, she had no use for a room like this.

"Cupcak- Oh no." Red closed his eyes in exasperation. "Come on guys, let's get back to the kitchen and show those idiots what kind of mistake they've made."

The four headed out of the library and towards the kitchen. It wasn't the far walk. He'd probably catch his friends before they did anything too stupid. He could deal with three PokePuffs for each of his Pokémon. This batch had actually been a little larger than normal, with fourteen puffs instead of twelve. The last two were reserved for something special.

If Ness was bribing Samus for cupcakes, Red had no doubt that his blond shadows would be in on this two. Since Toon Link have made up with Ness, the swordsman was too worried about insulting his new friend to object to any of the black haired boy's hairbrained plans. Lucas, on the other hand, just seemed to like food. It was horrific watching those PSI users eat. Or maybe he just liked Ness too much to leave him alone. Or both. Still, the Pokemon trainer had a cruel trick up his sleeve to stop them from ever trying to steal from him again.

"…dea anymore. What if he was making these for something special?" Lucas' voice sounded through the crack in the door. It seemed they hadn't started to eat yet.

"Come on, Luc. He made so many! He was probably going to share them with us anyway! We'll just take some before the rest of the smashers find out." There was a slightly nervous tone to Ness' voice. "It's like a free for all every time someone bakes something. The moment Kirby finds out…"

Red sighed softly. It sounded like they were still uncertain. This prank was worth losing a few PokePuffs. He was going to have fun seeing the results after he walked in. Maybe he'd just have to give them a little encouragement. An evil grin found its way to the trainer's face as he pushed the doors open.

"Getting Samus to distract me isn't the best idea if you're going to spend the whole day chatting like Chatots," he commented. His three friends nearly jumped out of their skin when they saw him. "Sorry, but your ten minutes of freedom are up. What took you so long anyway?"

"T-they were too hot before," Toon Link began to explain. He looked around for a way to escape. "We were waiting for them to cool down, but then we started to have second thoughts."

"Ness was right though-"

"Called it!"

"I was willing to share," Red continued. "I made lots. You guys are welcome to have one each. Actually, I insist."

The trainer couldn't resist smiling. It seemed that Lucas took notice of this as he gave the trainer a very nervous look. Still, he wasn't going to look in Red's head. The Pokemon trainer knew his friend would never do that if he didn't get permission first. This only made Lucas more worried, which in turn made Red smile even more.

"R-Red… Are you okay?" his little blond friend asked.

"I'm fine. Just eat." Now the other two had caught onto Red's odd behaviour. Ness looked at the Pokémon trainer while Toon Link looked at the PokePuff in his hands, trying to figure out what was wrong with it.

"Ness, I'm starting to think this is bad idea." Toon Link was finally ready to voice his own opinion. The black haired PSI user he'd been addressing gave a little nod in return.

"You might be right about that, Toonie…" the normally confident boy muttered.

"Nope, you're both wrong," Red insisted. "Just eat it."

"I don't think-" Lucas began.

"Eat."

"Re-" Ness tried.

"**Eat.**"

Red gave his friends the same glare he normally gave his Pokémon when they were about to do something really bad, the type of glare that demanded obedience. Like a newly caught Pokémon, his friends could hardly resist it. He was one of the world's number one trainers for a reason. Each of his friends took a bite out of their Puff. The size varied between them. Toon Link had taken a small bite because he was still nervous. Ness had taken a medium sized bite for the same reason. Lucas had taken a large one to show he still believed in Red. Regardless of the size, they all regretted taking a bite.

"What the hell?!"

"H-how?!"

"Why would you do this to us?"

Red just laughed as each of his friends tried to get the awful taste out of their mouths. It served them right for trying to steal from him and his Pokémon. He did feel a little bad. Lucas was looking at him with big, betrayed eyes.

"Well, to start off, those aren't cupcakes," the trainer began. Ness looked to him in concern.

"Then what are they?" the black haired psychic asked. He looked like he'd just been told he'd eaten poison.

"They are called PokePuffs. They're a nice snack for Pokémon. Trainers all over make them, but I haven't been up to it lately. Today, though, I decided that my team deserves a treat for being so good." Red smiled as he felt his Pokémon nuzzling against him at that comment. He patted Ivysaur, who happened to be the easiest to get to at the time. "They're actually quite tasty, if you'd acquired the taste."

"Something that awful can never taste good!" Toon Link objected. As soon as he finished talking, he began to brush his tongue off to get rid of the last of the flavour.

"Oh, but it can. And Pokémon love them," the devious trainer commented. "I hated them at first, too, but with time I came to like them. These ones are sweet flavoured, but I like the spice flavoured ones. Still, my team has a bit of a sweet tooth."

"Those things don't taste sweet at all," Lucas muttered. He was still looking at Red with betrayal. As a result, he trainer friend gave him a soft pat on the shoulder and took the Puff from him. He split it into three pieces and gave one to each of his Pokémon.

"They do to Pokémon. Humans and Pokémon have a lot of differences, and one of them is our sense of taste. I guess we just can't pick up on that kind of flavour." Red gave a little shrug. He went and collected the remaining PokePuffs from his other friends and gave them the same treatment. "I was planning on forcing you to eat the whole Puff-"

"That's evil!" Toon Link exclaimed.

"But," the trainer continued. "I don't want to make you guys sick. The berries found in these things are native to my homeland. I don't know how you'd go about digesting them. Lucky for me, you all spit out what you ate. I'd hate for any of you to get sick. Plus, Lucas is making me feel guilty."

"Well you should!" the blond PSI user objected. "You could have given us some fair warning and you practically forced us to eat them."

"You had to learn somehow." The trainer just shrugged at his friend. "It works out better this way than if I just told you. This way, you'll be careful before taking a bite out of something."

"You're an evil mastermind, Red…" Ness muttered under his breath, but still loud enough for the others to hear. This only got a chuckle out of the Pokémon trainer.

"I had to keep you out of my baked goods somehow," Red commented with a chuckle. Having improved his mood since his talk with Samus, the boy walked over to the remaining PokePuffs and placed them in four separate groups, three groups of three and one of two. With that done, he removed one puff from each pile and tossed it to his Pokémon.

The three ate their snacks quickly, but much slower than they had been with the previous pieces of Puff. Normally, their trainer never gave them more than one a day, but this was a special case, since nobody else would want a half even PokePuff. His Pokémon only did because they loved sweets far too much. Sometimes Red regretted feeding them candy when they were small.

"Hey Red, can I ask something about your Pokémon?" Lucas' voice snapped Red out of his reminiscing. "I was wondering, when you told me that Pokémon could evolve and all, why didn't Squirtle evolve? Also, why didn't Ivysaur evolve after the first evolution?"

Toon Link looked to Lucas with a bit of surprise. They weren't supposed to talk about things like evolution, but Red had let it slip one day. It had been before Toon Link joined their little group almost a week ago. It shouldn't have been said, but it was, so the trainer didn't bother to take it back. He talked about what the evolutionary lines of each of his Pokémon were like. Ever since, his blond friend had wanted to know more and more about his world. It was a shame they couldn't talk about these things. The possibility to learn about a new world was amazing to Red and his small blond companion.

"Evolution is a choice. The Pokémon decides when they are ready. Sometimes, though, certain Pokémon decide they never want evolve, like Squirtle." He rubbed the head of his blue Pokémon as he mentioned her. "Squirtle's really strong, and by the standards of Squirtle should have evolved a really long time ago, but she didn't want to. If she evolved, she'd become too big to perform the quick moves that she showed off during the Subspace Incident. She picked speed over strength and I'd never ask her to change if she didn't want to."

"And it's the same for Ivysaur?" Ness asked. Red was a little surprised, he didn't realize things like this were of interest to his black haired friend.

"Pretty much. She wanted things a little different. She wanted more power, even if it cost speed, but decided to compromise between the two. That's just the type of girl she is." Red scratched his grass type under her leaves affectionately. "Any more questions?"

"Not really," Lucas mused. "It's really cool how that works, though. I guess that means you've got a pretty nice range of abilities on the battle field. I wouldn't want to go against you in a brawl."

"Luc, you wouldn't want to brawl anyone," Ness teased. This got a pout out of the other PSI user. The boy mumbled something so softly that nobody could hear. "What was that?"

"I-I said that maybe I would want to brawl Wario. He's strong and all, but I don't like him very much and he deserves a firm kick right in the face!" Lucas went from a sounding shy to muffling his anger.

"We already gave his ass a good enough kicking when we fought him before," Red commented. He placed a hand on the blond's shoulder. "Don't you think that was good enough revenge for turning Ness into a trophy?"

"You got turned into a trophy by Wario?" Toon Link looked over to Ness with surprise. This got a hushed grumble out of the other boy. Ness was still a little ashamed of that, but then again, he'd done it for Lucas' sake.

"It's not a big deal," the black haired psychic grumbled. "Besides, we've all been trophies at least once, I think. It's not that big of a deal. Anyway, Wario could turn out to be really, really strong and we wouldn't know it until the brawls start."

"They should be starting soon, right?" Red asked. A small smile was coming to his lips again. It would be good to be able to fight again. He always found himself growing restless when there was nobody strong around to challenge him. Sometimes he even hoped for a weak bug catcher to end the peace.

Ness gave him a little nod. "They start in another two weeks. It feels like forever though. Still, you better enjoy this peace while it lasts. Brawls are tiring and have fewer rewards than you would expect. They can ask as many as ten brawls of you a day, and you can't refuse them. They'll let up if you're challenging people on your own, though."

"You sound like you've been through a ten brawl day," Lucas commented. He gave his fellow psychic a sympathetic look.

"I was. It was during my very first week. I never wanted to see another stage in my life after that." The black haired boy sighed. "But, it shouldn't be that bad with how many fighters we have this years. They just have to fill a certain quota."

"I hope I don't have to brawl that often," the blond psychic replied.

"I wouldn't mind fighting that much. I mean, I pretty much fought day and night going around on my adventure," Toon Link commented cheerfully. "How much of a difference could a brawl make?"

"Oh, it makes a real difference," Ness huffed out. "There's a big difference fighting under set rules with people who are equal to you in strength all while trying not to fall off a surprisingly small platform for a few minutes straight and fighting a bunch of bad guys who are much weaker than you."

This brought down the Toon's excitement and saddened Lucas a bit. It did bother Red a little, but that wasn't such a big deal. After facing the Elite Four, he was pretty used to fighting people who were almost, if not equally, as strong as he was. Still, Ness really seemed to hate it, so that much mean something.

"I guess you won't know if it's for you or not until after you start," the trainer mused. "I wish we didn't have to wait this month. It's just making me all the more nervous, giving me time to think about what it's going to be like."

"Oh please, you aren't even really going to be fighting," Ness teased.

Red frowned to the shorter boy. "Hey, I can be worried about my Pokémon. This is gonna be really tough for them and I have to support them during every part of the tournament."

"Fine, fine. Just don't worry too much about the brawls. You'll do fine. We all will." Ness gave each member of the group a smile, including the Pokémon. "But, if you're worried, you should train. Speaking of which, anyone want to train with me?"

"I'm up for it," Toon Link cheered. His hand slipped to his sword while his smile filled with a thirst for battle.

"Me too. My team needs to work off their PokePuffs." The trainer's comment got indignant sound from his party.

"I guess I have to join as well…" Lucas looked a little disappointed. "I don't mind if it means we can keep hanging out, though."

"Well, that's get going!" the veteran of the group cheered and headed out of the door. The two blond began to follow him, but Red didn't.

"Hold on a bit, I need to pack up my PokePuffs and I'll meet you in the training room in like five minutes," the trainer said. Though Lucas didn't want to go, the group did as he asked.

Red picked up what remained up the snacks he made for his team. He placed them in his bag and headed up to his room, the dishes left unclean and forgotten. He'd deal with those later. Once he was upstairs, the boy dropped his bag on Charizard's bed.

"Now's as good a time as any," he sighed out.

The boy took some of the paper from the desk and wrote out a message for his roommate. Worried that the Pokémon was unable to read, he also made sure to leave a small draw of a Pikachu on the corner so the electric mouse knew it was meant for him. Once it was done, he placed the note on his stolen bed along with the two extra PokePuffs he'd baked. Hopefully his roommate would find it by the time be got back.

* * *

_Dear Pikachu_

_I don't expect you to stop hating me, but that doesn't mean I can't be nice to you. I made these for my team. I hope you like sweet flavour._

_Signed_

_Red_

* * *

After a long day of training, eating, and even more training, Red was dead tired. He had been right there among his party, dodging blows and giving orders like he did at home. The other brawlers thought it was a bit too dangerous, and reminded him he'd be out of danger in real brawls, but he'd still insisted on it.

When he got back to his room, there was a little bit of a surprise for him. The electric mouse who had so rudely laid claim on his bed was no longer on it. Instead, the small Pokémon was curled up his own bed. The only thing on Red's bed now was pink crumbs. It looked like the tiny veteran had finally forgiven him enough to allow him his own bed.

Red cautiously crawled onto it, watching for any sign from the electric Pokémon, but there was none. The boy gave a hushed sigh of relief and laid down on the pillow. He'd never imagined he'd fall asleep right there, but the boy was dead tired.

"I told you guys there were other ways…" he muttered as he slipped off to sleep.

* * *

**Final note, I once ate a dog treat at a friend's house because I thought it was a cookie. My friend just sat there and let me eat it despite knowing what it was. What a jerk.**


	5. The Hat

**I probably should have mentioned this before, but this fic contains major spoilers for the end of Mother 3. If you don't want to be spoiled for it, go play or watch someone play the game. It's really good. I can't recommend it enough. I know it can start off slow, but the ending is one of the best I've ever seen. If you enjoy watching Lucas go through horrors, you'll love the game. If you want to see him happy, you're out of luck, though.**

**This chapter will contain references to everyone's**_** favourite **_**part of Mother 3, Tanetane Island. Just a warning for people who found that part really uncomfortable.**

**Next chapter the brawls will start.**

* * *

_Every part of Lucas hurt. He was covered in scratches from head to toe. The faint glow of PSI shown off of him as his body tried to heal itself with his remaining PSI. It could try, but it was fail. He didn't have the energy to completely heal himself. Without his direction, the PSI would focus on every wound equally. The boy might have tried to focus on the massive stab wound through his shoulder or the large cut in his leg that still had blood gushing out if he weren't so tired. He didn't have the energy for that. He was just too tired for anything._

_The boy had one task left. He just had to full the final needle and he would be free. The world would be safe and he could final rest. He should be happy. People would say he was a hero, even though he knew he was hardly heroic. His home would finally be safe. But he couldn't be happy. It was an empty victory. He wouldn't be allowed to enjoy it. Perhaps he was a burden on this world as well and he could be washed away with the rest of the evil. That would be nice. He could finally rest._

_No, he couldn't go. His father would be all alone. As little as he saw of his father, Flint still needed him. Especially since-_

* * *

**No! No! No! No! Don't remember! Push it out of your mind Lucas! You don't need to know! Wouldn't it be better if you didn't know?**

* * *

_Lucas pushed past his friend Duster. The crippled man had been trying to support the young hero, but the boy didn't want any help. He had to finish this alone. None of his friends could understand the weight of pulling a needle. It was something he alone knew. He and ***** were the only ones that could pull the needles. His friend gave up as soon as he felt the harshness in Lucas' push. Normally they wouldn't let him go, but right now was special because_**it** _had just happened._

_The blond boy made it to the needle without much more stumbling. He took a deep breath, asking the world if he should pull the needle. The world said no, but he never really cared what the world thought. He would pull it anyway._

_The cold sting of pulling a needle pulsed through the boy. It hurt more than any blow ever could. There went the last of his strength. The Dark Dragon needed it more than he did. There went the warmth in his heart. Every time he pulled a needle, more and more of his heart was lost to the Dragon. He would take the Dragon's hate and contempt for the world and the Dragon would take his love. That was why the only move that could contact the Dragon was called PK Love._

_The Dragon took a big gulp of the harshness of love, the unbelievable pain of having someone you loved torn away from you. This was the main feeling in Lucas' heart right now, after all. The Dragon took it, leaving hate and fear in its place. For once, though, the Dragon got the bad end of the stick. The blond boy felt anger towards the Dragon in that moment._

If it hadn't been for you…

_His anger was the only thing that kept Lucas standing. His PSI was drained, his body was broken, but still he stood. He was too mad and frustrated to give up right now. That anger couldn't keep him standing as the ground began to shake. The boy fell to the ground and his friends rushed to him. His father didn't, though. No, his father stayed where he promised he would, with *****. Flint had always loved ***** more anyway._

_When the ground started to crack, Flint finally went to Lucas, pulling his son away from one of the cracks. This left ***** alone. A corpse cannot run from danger. It had no other option than to fall through the cracks in the ground. Lucas let out a scream, one that his dream would not allow him to hear. He called out the name of the person the corpse used to be. A person that was very important to him. ***** would never have a proper burial, he would be lost of the ruins of New Pork City._

_Well, at least the rest of the world was going with him._

* * *

Lucas woke up with a groan. He'd been having the same dream on and off since the morning he dreamt of his missing brother. Of course, it was no dream, it was his reality. That was the fate that Master Hand had pulled him away from. He didn't know if his friends lived or died. Of course, his dream added a few extra flavours. He had no memory of anyone being there besides his allies and Porky's robot. He didn't know who the strange person he seemed to care for was.

"Well, at least I didn't cry," he reassured himself, knowing he was alone in the room. Unlike Lucas, Ness didn't sleep in to ridiculous times unless woken. This gave the blond the freedom to get ready at his own pace.

It wasn't that he didn't like having a roommate. He actually really enjoyed staying with Ness. It was never lonely, and he could always go to his black haired friend for help. Yet, there were times when he wanted to be alone. Being around people could be hard for the blond, especially after three years of near isolation. After his brother had disappeared, Lucas only left his house to get more food from Thomas' store. The only people who visited him were his grandfather and Fuel. In the end, his grandfather stopped visiting. His father was never around either.

Getting ready alone in the mornings was nice. He could take his time and think. Ness would think it was weird when the blond would close his eyes and stand in front of his mirror, brushing his hair. Lucas didn't have the heart to tell him why he did that. Ness would just feel bad. He didn't want to burden his friends with his trouble.

"Wow, I'm a little melancholy this morning," Lucas laughed out. He tried not to go back to his previous thought. He should be thinking about the future, not the past. The past was unchangeable. He didn't ask for the impossible, so he looked to the future. There were plenty of things coming up.

Master Hand was almost completely back to full strength. Of course, he didn't say that to anyone. No, he told them that the stages were almost completely fixed. That just told everyone he was feeling better, though. The brawls would be starting up some time in the next week. It worried Lucas quite a bit, but everyone else seemed so excited. That was the life of the one pacifist stuck in a fighting contest. Sometimes, he too would get a little excited, but that was mostly from picking up the excitement that rolled off Toon Link liked a wave.

Lucas planned to do his best to make the best of today. The brawls could start anytime, so he would make use of the time he had left with his friends. Not that he couldn't see them when they weren't fighting, but this was the only time he knew they were all free. As such, the four of them had make plans to have breakfast, or as Ness called this type of breakfast, brunch, together this morning. Normally Lucas only ate with Ness, but this was a special occasion.

Looking to the clock, the boy quickly realized that he was about to be late. They'd agreed to eat late, so that nobody had to wake up Lucas, but they had under estimated how long he could sleep after of a night of late training with Red. Without Kumatora to throw water on his face every morning, the boy was allowing himself to sleep in later and later.

Rushing to get dressed, the blond had only about five minutes left until he was supposed to meet the others. It was good that Ness offered to cook for all of them as the veteran of the group, or Lucas would be in much bigger trouble. He was normally the one that did the cooking for himself and his friends. Hopefully they'd forgive him if he was a few minutes late. In the end, he made it to the kitchen two minutes past eleven.

When he arrived, his three friends were sitting around the table, a serious look on each of their faces. They looked at Lucas, as if they had something really important to say to him. He would have taken this more seriously, if Toon Link would stop accidentally breaking into a grin every five seconds before correcting himself. It was clear to the boy that they were planning to play some sort of silly prank on him.

"Guys, I was only two minutes late. Don't go off on me," the blond managed to say. Regardless, his friend's expressions didn't change.

"That's not what we need to talk to you about," Ness began. "Please sit down. This might take a while."

The blond psychic rolled his eyes as he sat down. It was just another silly prank of his friends'. There was no real reason to worry. Sometimes acting serious could be funnier than the silliest of jokes. This little prank would probably go off a little better if Toon Link wasn't messing it all up. Once he was comfortably seated, the other three boys began to look at each other, unsure who would begin. Red raised his hand, and so he was the one to start.

"Lucas, it's come to our attention that you… Well, you don't have a hat."

Lucas very nearly fell out of his seat. "You just noticed? Really, guys, it's not that big of a deal. I mean, you all have hats, but I don't need one. I- I never liked hats."

"Have you ever tried hats?" Toon Link asked his fellow blond. He made it sounds like hats were the most wonderful thing in the world and that Lucas was missing out by not wearing one.

"Toonie, I have worn hats before," the taller blond began. "It's just they normally don't fit me very well with my hair sticking up like this. Also, I feel like my head is being stuffed into something way too small. So let's drop the subject."

Of course his friend wouldn't be willing to drop the subject. He knew that from just the top layer he was picking up from Red and Toon Link's minds. They wanted him to join their troupe of hatted boys. Well, this wasn't the worst way to spend one of their last free days here.

"We can find a hat that will fit you," Ness offered. This earned him a glare from Lucas. Morning Lucas was a friend to no man. Ness had given him the nickname The Beast because he nearly fried the black haired boy when he woke up one the third day here. Because of this, Ness knew better than anyone else in this room that pushing morning Lucas too far had its consciences.

"Just get me my damn omelette…" Lucas muttered to his friend. Due to Ness' healthy fear of The Beast, he quickly delivered a plate containing an omelette to his dear friend. The blond almost caught the fear in his friend's eyes.

Of course, one bite of omelette soothed the blond psychic right away. He'd always loved them. Eating one in the morning reminded of him of the peaceful time, back when he could wake up every morning and his mother would have one waiting for him. However, that time was over. Tasting the food brought him happiness and a hint of sadness. Either way, his friends knew it was safe to talk with him again after he gave his obligatory sigh.

"We were thinking… You're a special guys Luc," Red started again. He got a weird look from his blond friend. "A special guy deserves a special hat, or at least he should try on one every once and a while. That's why the three of us have agreed to let you try on our hats."

"And get lice," Lucas interrupted. "I trust you and Toonie not to have any, but Ness is well… I've never see that boy put a brush anywhere near his head."

"It's not my fault I enjoy the way my bedhead looks," the previously mentioned boy huffed. "But I don't have lice. If I did, everyone else here would have it by now. Oh, and I've used a brush before. Since we're roommates, I just use yours."

"You're a terrible person, Ness."

"Love you too, Luc~"

The blond just glared at his dark haired friend. He was going to get back at Ness for that later. Now everyone could see his flushed cheeks. He knew it was a meaningless gesture, but you didn't just tell one of your friends that you loved them, especially in front of others. People might think things… Ness was laughing at his dumb pink face now. This required revenge in the highest degree.

"Anyway, back to hats." Toon Link interrupted. Lucas owed him. It took everyone's attention from his blush. "You can try mine on, Lucas! Actually, I insist! I think green will look the nicest."

Before the blond psychic had time to refuse, his shorter friend had removed his hat, leaned across the table and stuck it on Lucas' head. Right away, Lucas got the feeling that it looked bad. Red and Ness looked like they were about to laugh. Toon Link looked like he had seen a ghost.

"T…That hat is supposed to go back a little farther on your head," the shellshocked boy managed to say and went to adjust the hat. Before he could, the other two broke out into snickers.

"Holy crap Luc! You're hair made it stand straight up!" Ness managed to say through chuckles. The hyena of a trainer beside him nodded in confirmation that, yes, that was exactly what it looked like. The blond psychic gave them a pout for their opinions.

"There, now that looks much better. For a moment, I thought Tingle was back." Lucas could feel Toon Link shudder behind him. "What do you think guys? Is it the right hat for him?"

"I don't think so," Ness answered. "I think my hat will be best."

"Nope, it's going to be mine," Red chimed in. "He's the trainer type."

"Red, he's a psychic. Like me. Therefore, my hat is the logical answer," the black haired psychic shot back.

"I still think this hat is best," Toon Link muttered as he removed his hat from Lucas' head and put it back on.

Red stood up before Ness could and removed his own hat. Lucas had never seen him without it. He looked rather odd. Not that the boy cared. Being the only introvert in a group of extroverts could be annoying. He just let them do what they wanted to do while he enjoyed his omelette. If anyone ever tried to tell him that Ness was a bad cook after this, he'd have to call them a liar. He paused mid bite as he felt a slightly too small hat slip over his head and mess up his hair. Not that it matter. No matter what, his hair would spring up into that same cowlick as soon as the hat was off.

"See, he looks great in my hat. This had got to be the one for him." Red seemed so proud of himself. Lucas was a little curious about what he must look like right now, but he was not so curious that he would give up his omelette to find out.

"I still don't think it will work with him…" Ness was stalling so he could get a turn seeing what Lucas would look like with his hat. The boy did consider it the finest hat here, after all.

"I guess that means my hat wins. That's great, I have an extra in my room and Lucas and I can be blond hat buddies!" Toon cheered happily. This only got an annoyed sound out of Ness.

"My hat hasn't been tried yet! It's definitely going to be the best! Right Luc?" Oh no, now Ness wanted his opinion. Didn't the boy get that the omelette came before hats? He got an angry grunt from Lucas.

"Omelette." The blond refused to explain further.

"You said that Red's hat don't look very good on Lucas! Your hat and his look almost the exact same!" Toon Link would soon regret saying that. He got nasty glares from his two dark haired friends. Lucas would smile if he wasn't busy savouring Ness' amazing omelette cooking skills. The other blond was not having as good a time. He took a step back, but didn't back down.

"They aren't the same," Red began.

"Not even close," Ness continued.

"So don't make that comparison again," Red hissed out, the threat creeping into his voice. If they weren't friends, Toon Link might have to fear for his life.

"Or you're dead." Ness cracked his knuckles, echoing the trainer's threat.

Toon Link didn't take the threat seriously, though. He simply rolled his eyes and looked over Lucas, who still had the Pokémon trainer's hat on.

"It looks nice and all, but I really think my hat suits him better." The blond swordsman explained. Of course, since everyone had given their opinions, it meant it was time to switch hats.

Ness went last, despite the fact it was clear he wanted to go first. Even with his speed, the boy had fallen behind the trainer and the swordsman. When his turn had come, he got out of his chair and walked up to Lucas. He sadly slid his precious hat off his head and placed it on Lucas' head. The blond boy picked up the fact he should feel honoured to get to wear Ness' precious hat. He had even stopped eating, just for the fact this was a special occasion.

"Well? What do you guys think on this one?" Lucas asked. They normally piped up right away. However, the others were silent. He thought maybe he'd scared them somehow, but that seemed impossible. It was just him in a hat, right? Despite Ness and Red's protests, their hats were really similar, so it shouldn't be so strange.

Red was the one that broke the silence that fell over the three boys. He scratched at the back of his neck nervously. "Wow, Luc. I near realized it, but you actually look a lot like Ness. With your haired all smoothed down, you could be his blond copy."

Lucas flinched at the word copy. He was already someone's reflection. He couldn't handle being Ness' as well. Looking like Claus was already a stab in the heart. Looking in the mirror after the tournament was over and seeing Ness as well would outright kill the boy.

"Maybe you're related," Toon Link suggested. He just made Lucas feel worse. Unfortunately, the toon was a little dense, so he didn't notice.

"Guys, Luc and I come from different worlds." Ness placed his hand on Lucas' back, knowing the other boy was upset. The touch calmed the blond a little. "He's no more related to me than he is to Toonie, since they're both blond. It's a shame though. He gets to miss out on my family's secret steak recipe."

Lucas rolled his eyes at Ness. "Who wants to learn how to cook steak anyway? Omelettes are much better."

"See! See!" Ness shouted. "That is absolute proof that we aren't related! If we were, he would never bad mouth steak in that way! He just happens to look damn good in my hat."

"No way, he looked best in mine!" Toon Link yelled.

"No, he looked best in mine!" Red said his piece as well.

Lucas couldn't help but roll his eyes. It was hard to believe these three were his friends sometimes. It had long since dawned on him that this was no simple contest to see whose hat looked best on him. No, this meant much more.

"This fight is just over whose hat is best, isn't it?" he muttered.

"Yep."

"Pretty much."

"It always was."

The blond boy brought out into a little laugh. He laughed and laughed until he felt his eyes almost tearing up. He was friends with some very weird, hat wearing boys. That didn't change that he was glad he met them. They'd eased his worry over his home considerably. It was nice to have friends his own age again. Well, he'd always have Fuel, but the other village kids had shunned his after he refused to get a Happy Box.

"So I don't need to get a hat?" he asked once he'd stopped laughing. The serious looks came back onto his friend's faces.

"No, you're still getting a hat," his fellow psychic insisted.

"You just can't be a child hero without one," Toon had joked. He didn't realize that those were words Lucas dreaded.

They twisted in his head, taking a new form. You're not a hero. You're the villain. The fear he was the one that destroyed his world filled the boy again. It was funny. The friends who had helped his forget his fears had pulled them right back out. Without his knowledge, the blond psychic stared at his friends with dead eyes. They had laughed nervously at first, but it quickly became clear that he was not joking with that look.

"Lucas?" Toon Link asked timidly. Guilt poured off him, as all his emotions did. The boy was a pure heart, and so everything he felt, he felt with a crazy amount of intensity. "Are you alright?"

The moment the other blond picked up on his newest friend's guilt, he snapped up and forced a fake smile. He forced the dead eyed look to go away. Nobody needed to know. Nobody could know. It was against the rules. More importantly, he didn't want to worry his friends. What would the young heroes think if they knew he was a villain?

"Yes. Sorry, I just remembered that I forgot my ID back in the room. Sorry for spacing out guys." Another perfect lie. This s a skill he learned at home. It wasn't something he was proud of, but it had his uses. Lucas would rather be honest, but sometimes honesty hurt more than the cruelest of lies. For some reason, though, he got the feeling Ness didn't quite believe him.

"…So…" Ness began. "Are you going to eat the rest of your omelette?"

The blond psychic shook his head and pushed his plate to the black haired boy. No, Lucas wasn't going to eat his omelette. If he tried to eat anything in his current state of mind, the boy knew that it would just end up coming right back up. Lucas felt sick. Right now, the only thing he wanted to do was go back to his room and curl into a ball. But that wasn't to be. They had plans today.

It was going to be a very long day.

* * *

_A boy named Lucas is crying at a grave…_

_A boy named Lucas and his dog are loitering in the forest…_

_A boy named Lucas is getting into trouble in the mountains…_

_A boy named Lucas stole nuts from our garden…_

_A boy named Lucas is bullying animals…_

_A boy named Lucas learned some __**bad magic**__…_

_A boy named Lucas…_

_A boy named Lucas…_

_A boy named Lucas…_

_A boy named Lucas…_

_A boy named Lucas…_

_A boy named Lucas…_

* * *

"Lucas!"

The blond boy jumped when he heard his name being called. Ness was less than an inch away from his face, worry clear in his violet eyes. Something about that look said that he had been trying to get the blond's attention for a while.

Lucas felt bad. He'd been thinking back to Tanetane Island again, and all the horrors he saw there. It was like that place knew he would be a villain. It had also preyed on his loneliness and that fact he feared being alone. Ness couldn't be allowed to find out the truth about why he was spacing out all of the time. This had been the third time his friend had needed to shake him awake.

"Sorry Ness…" Lucas muttered. "Was there something that you wanted?"

"Well," his friend began. "Toonie and Red left a while ago to go watch some of the old fights. Since it's just you and me in the training room, I figured we could play some PSI Ball."

PSI Ball was a game of Ness' own creation. Because the training room was one of the few places in the house where the two of them were free to use their PSI as much as they would like, it was the only place they could play the game.

The rules were simple. They would make a small ball of pure PSI and throw it back and forth to each other using telekinesis. Every time the ball came to them, they would increase its size a little by layering their own PSI over top of what was already there. It was a great exercise for control, as keeping the ball together in its larger state was difficult. More than anything, it taught them to work as a team. They knew right when the other was going to drop the ball and when to pick up.

"Sounds like fun," Lucas lied. He wasn't sure he was well enough for the game today, but he couldn't let Ness suspect.

"Then I'll start," his hatted friend replied happily. He led Lucas over to the training mat. The black haired boy put his hands together and began forming a small ball of PSI. It had to be no more than an inch in diameter, but that was good for a start. The larger the ball they started with, the harder the game was. It seemed Ness wanted to start out slowly today.

The black haired psychic floated the ball back over to his blond counterpart. Once it was less than a foot from Lucas, the blond took over. He carefully layered some of his PSI over Ness'. Instead of the perfect round shape it normally was, the ball ended up oddly spike. It was clumped up in strange areas, but Lucas couldn't get it to go right. He tried to float the ball back to his friend. Instead of the gentle pace it should have been, it went shooting out like from a canon. Ness barely had time to dive out of the way.

"What was that?" Ness yelled from the ground. Lucas was already rushing over to help friend up. He hadn't meant to hurt him.

"I'm sorry, I… I…" There was no reasonable excuse in his mind. He could say he thought it was funny, but Lucas knew Ness would never believe that. He could say that he got distracted again, but that was just as bad. Ness already suspect too much.

"Luc…" Ness' tone was gentler than any he had ever used in front of the blond before. "What's wrong? You've been out of it all day. I want to know why."

"I-I was just thinking about brawls." That lie should pass, but it didn't. Ness' purple eyes narrowed. It was like he could smell the lies wafting off of his blond counterpart.

"I know you're lying. You need to stop doing that. I can't read your mind like everyone else, but I know that you're lying!" The black haired boy was doing his best not to yell. He was trying to treat Lucas gently, but Lucas didn't think he deserved such kindness. "Your PSI is affected by your state of mind, you know. If you're upset, it wouldn't focus right, and you'll end up lashing out like you just did."

Lucas couldn't meet his friend's eyes. He didn't want to have his talk but he was feeling too guilty for lying.

"You've been upset about brawling since this thing started. This isn't about brawling. It's something new." Ness pushed himself up so he could look the blond right in the eyes. "Is someone hurting you? I'll kick there asses if they are, but you've gotta tell me who."

"No…"

"Then is someone being mean to you? I'll still kick their asses." Ness rested his hands on Lucas' shoulders.

"No…"

"Then…" The black haired boy paused. "Is it about what Toon Link said at brunch?"

Lucas jumped. That was all the reaction the other boy needed. Ness frowned deeply.

"I knew it. You got upset twice, once when he said we looked alike." Lucas still flinched at that thought. "And once when he said you weren't a hero. But you know he's just joking, right Luc? You're a hero, just like the rest of us."

He could end this here. If Lucas lied and smiled, then said he was just feeling a little down because he wasn't as special as the others, he could escape this far too difficult conversation. The only problem is his tongue wouldn't let him lie. Like a dam with so many cracks, the truth was coming out, no matter what Lucas wanted. He couldn't help himself.

"I'm not a hero! I've never been a hero! All I've ever been is a stupid crybaby that can't save anyone! What did my journey amount to? Nothing! For all I know, the world still ended, and it's all my fault!" If he still had tears to cry over the fate of his world, Lucas would be an absolute mess. "…I think… I think I ended the world… I'm the villain of my story."

Ness was quiet for a bit. Slowly, he leaned forward. Lucas was sure the other boy wanted to strike him, but he didn't. Instead, he pulled his blond companion into a tight hug. Said blond went tense for a moment before relaxing in his hatted saviour's grip. He'd given up trying to fight it. Under all his despair, there was a small happiness in him. Ness accepted him, even if he was a villain.

"Don't be stupid Luc. You could never be a villain," Ness whispered. "I don't care if you ended up destroying the world. Did you mean to?"

"No, but-" Ness refused to let Lucas finish what he was saying.

"Then you're not a villain. You're Lucas, and Lucas is without a doubt a hero." The blond felt his friend gently stroking his back, allowing him to relax even more. "You're a great guy. You've got one of the kindest, gentlest souls I've ever seen. You would never hurt anyone that didn't pick a fight with you. Even though you aren't fearless, you go back and face those fears. All of these things make you a hero, a far better hero than I ever was."

"Ness…" As much as Lucas wanted to tell his friend how much he admired him and thought **he** was the greatest hero, he couldn't. His words wouldn't flow.

"That's why I'm honoured to call you my best friend. I wish Toonie was right, and we were related because that would be an even greater honour. So, never talk bad about yourself again, okay?" Ness finished. He didn't finish his hug though. He continued to hold tightly onto his blond friend. This turned out for the best because Lucas could barely stand. His body was shaken by tears that refused to come out.

"Thank you… Thank you so much…" That was all the blond could say. He held onto his black haired friend with all the strength he had left in his body.

"You're welcome Luc. You know, it's okay to cry?" Ness asked lightly.

"I know. I just can't anymore," Lucas answered. This respond drew a sigh from his fellow PSI user.

"That's alright too. You can just keep hugging me for now. Until you feel better."

It really was going to be a long night, and Lucas spent most of it in the training room, clinging to his newly minted best friend for dear life.

* * *

This was the first night in a very long time that Lucas had a happy dream. Instead of dreams of what could have happened, or dreams where he faced the reality of what had happened, the boy dreamed of what could never be. He dreamed about playing in the sunflower patches with Claus and Ness. He dreamed about showing his new friend how to ride the Dragos and how much fun it could be to run into them. He simply dreamed of happy times with Ness. And for once, he was content with that.

Even if it was just for a while, Lucas would be happy here. He had to live in the moment. Even if what he wanted was impossible, it was okay to dwell on it for a while. He wondered if Claus had been around, if he would be proud of his over thinking brother for finally letting his guard down enough for some whimsy.


	6. The Brawl

**Sorry this update is so late. I've been having a hard last few days. I had to sign up for classes for my next year of university. It turned out, I can't even be classified as a second year student yet because I forgot to take on mandatory class for all of the second year requirement classes.**

**Anyway, ball lightning and lightning bolts are two very different things.**

* * *

Lucas looked nervously at the paper on the wall. Apparently, he was one of the lower tier fighters and therefore he would have fewer fights. He was fine with this, of course, but he'd still have some fights. He was also the lowest ranked of his friends. Somehow Toon Link had the highest rank of the four, followed by Ness then Red. Red was actually only one rank above Lucas. Why would they make this list public? It only told the villains who would be the easiest targets to force into a brawl so they could improve their own ranking. Then again, most of the villains were ranked pretty low too.

"I should be fine," the blond boy said to himself. He'd almost forgotten he wasn't there by himself. Suddenly a hand came out and patted him on the back.

"I've fought beside you before, Luc. You'll do more than fine," Red reassured him. Of course Red would be with him right now.

Lucas' first match would be tomorrow. As was traditional, my opponent would be his veteran. Due to amount of fighters with year, the fights with the veterans would be combined into team matches. Tomorrow, Lucas would be fighting against Ness and Pikachu with Red as his partner. They might be able to do well, if Ness and Pikachu didn't work well together.

"I'm glad you're my partner. If it wasn't you or Toonie, I think I might freak out a little." The little blond looked up at his tall friend. Red was the most mature of the group. He didn't have the overflowing purity that Toon Link had, or the gentle charm of Ness, but he was still special. When it came down to teamwork, Lucas would rather be with nobody else.

"I think they paired us up because they know we work so well together," Red commented. "The Subspace incident was helpful in that way, at least. If it hadn't been for that, I don't think I would be as close to you as I am."

Lucas flinched. Whenever Red got sappy, the same thing happened. He always got his head patted. It happened now too. Despite the fact they were about the same age, Lucas had no clue how old Red was, the other boy was always rubbing his head. It was like he thought of the blond as a little kid he had to take care of. Not that Lucas was complaining. He enjoyed this treatment from Red. It was like having a big brother again.

"Well, we'll probably have more practice than Pikachu and Ness!" Lucas replied cheerfully. "Though… I won't like fighting Ness. He's a good friend."

"Not to mention what will happen if we beat Pikachu…" Red muttered. "If he gets pissed at me, I'm going to get kicked out of the bed again."

The blond gave the trainer a very disappointed look. The silence between them was almost deafening until Red rubbed at the back of his neck nervously.

"That is not what it sounds like. He just gave me my bed back."

"Great job keeping us up to date on your life, friend…"

The Pokémon trainer rolled his eyes. He looked away from the little blond and back to the lists on the wall. The tall boy gave a little sound of surprise. He moved in closer to read the smaller font before looking back to his companion.

"It seems we've gotta train with our vets tonight. The training room will be off limits unless it's our time to train. Speaking of times to train, it looks like it's yours," Red commented calmly. His slow tone allowed Lucas to let his guard down until the end. The blond psychic jumped a good foot into the air with shock.

"W-what?! Mine, already?!" the smaller boy asked. "I've gotta go! Bye, Red! See you after training!"

Lucas waved to his hatted friend. He saw and evil look in the other boys eyes. For some reason, he got the feeling that Red had stalled him on purpose. The blond cursed his friends and their pranks. They were always getting him. Someday, he was going to get them back, and it would be glorious.

It took the blond a few minutes to get to the training room. Of course his veteran wasn't there when he arrived. This meant that Red really was pranking him. The blond cursed and turned to leave. When he did, he collided with someone about the same size as him. The force sent Lucas down onto his behind. It didn't do the same for the other, as they had momentum from walking for a while.

"Why do I keep running into people here…?" the other person' voice sounded. This caused the small blond to perk up. To his surprise, he realized that the person he ran into was Ness.

"Ness? What are you doing here?" Lucas asked, looking over his blank haired friend. Said friend gave him a slightly funny look.

"What am I doing here? I came here to set up for our training session. It's on the bulletins. You're a bit early, though. That's fine, we can start right away." Ness' tone was cheerful. It did not match Lucas' expression.

The blond would never fully understand his roommate. Fighting was not fun. It was painful and difficult. Lucas didn't understand how anyone could like it. True, he liked feeling powerful, but he didn't like the pain or the fear that fighting brought. Ness seemed to think that this tournament would be different, and he would know considering the fact this was his third tournament, but the other PSI user wasn't sure if he could trust his friend's judgement here.

"Wow, that sounds like a blast," Lucas commented as bluntly and sarcastically as he could. His black haired friend either didn't notice or didn't care because it didn't affect his carefree personality one lick.

"Honestly, I haven't been the best veteran. Sure, we did plenty of training before now and all, but I forgot something important." This comment got a confused look from the blond. "I kind of forgot to tell you all the rules of the brawl and what things you aren't supposed to do."

Lucas gave him friend his least impressed face. This was just like Ness. As kind and friendly as the other boy was, he had some very big flaws. The biggest of these is that he would lose his head if he wasn't attached to his shoulder. If he wasn't such a great guy, Lucas would doubt he was even a hero. How in the world did he manage to go on some big journey? Lucas assumed the other boy would forget where he was going constantly. He bet Ness had someone to keep him from getting lost. Maybe a dog or something.

"There's a limit on what I can do?" Lucas finally asked. He knew he wasn't allowed to do fatal damage to anyone, but Ness had said that Master Hand's magic would take care of that.

"Yeah. To keep things fair, we PSI users are restricted on what PSI we can use. Apparently you have a special ability that you're not allowed to use." There was a strange gleam in the black haired boy's eyes. "Well, except for right now. I wanna see it, then I can show you mine. Which I'm also not supposed to use."

"Alright…" Lucas muttered. Of course Ness would want to see it. The boy moved a bit away from his friend and readied his PSI. He had the choice between using this art at alpha beta gamma or omega level. The boy quickly decided that it would be best if he kept it at alpha. Beta gamma and omega were strong, too strong. If he accidentally hit Ness with them, they could do serious damage. The protection here wasn't as strong as it was during the actual brawls.

The blond boy pulled in a breath and let the power go free. PK Love always felt amazing to use. It burned it way across his skin, causing no pain put leaving cyan coloured marking. Hexagons of the same colour shot out of his hands and scattered across the area around him. His hatted friend was blown back slightly. Despite being some distance away from the black haired boy, Lucas' power had increased after pulling the final needle. He hadn't accounted for this. The moment he realized he had hit Ness, the blond stopped his attack.

"Ness! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to-" His friend interrupted him. The black haired boy had a huge grin on his face. He didn't look hurt at all, just a little blown back.

"That was awesome!" his friend cheered. "I mean, I could tell you were holding back. I can't imagine how strong you could be if you went all out. It was so cool!"

"R-really?" Lucas asked. He could feel his face heat up in embarrassment. He was used to people complimenting PK Love, mainly the Magypsies, but he'd never gotten a compliment about it from someone that he had used it on. Then again, they never got the chance since most of them were either dead or terrified. Of course, Ness wouldn't understand how much the compliment meant to Lucas. PK Love was the power of his heart. Saying things like that was saying Lucas had a strong heart.

"Now it's my turn. Don't worry, though. I'll make sure not to hit you." Ness pulled himself to his feet and got into a strange position. He looked like he was holding some sort of strange object. It took Lucas a moment, but remembered that he recognized that strange from one of the members of the DCMC. It was a guitar? That made little sense. Well, until his friend 'strummed' the invisible guitar.

The room cracked with power. It managed to steer clear of Lucas, but the rest of the room wasn't so lucky. Multi coloured light shot out of Ness' invisible guitar. Even the sound filled the air. Lucas found himself a little stunned. He got now why Ness wasn't allowed to use that power in battle. He was a PSI user as well, and could therefore tell Ness was also holding back. Was this was PK Love had looked like to Ness? It must have been wonderful.

"No wonder you're not allowed to use that in the brawls! It's amazing!" Lucas managed to say after watching the spectacular display. "Can I ask its name?"

"PK Rockin'," Ness replied cheerfully. "its way cooler than a lame name like Love, right?"

The blond narrowed his eyes at his friend. He knew he was just playing, but nobody dissed the glory that was love. "You're gonna regret saying that. I'm cooking up some amazing revenge. When it comes, you'll know it's me, and you'll be crying over how you never should have got on Lucas' bad side."

"…Lucas, you are the creepiest person I know. And I know Porky." The black haired PSI used proceeded to give a little cough to change the subject. "You can use your stick however you like, even though it isn't as good as a bat, and can use things like kicks and punches. You're free to use any of the weapons or items that drop during a battle. Most people get to stop in the lesson, but we're a little different. We're limited to only elemental PSI."

Lucas nodded. He had stuck mostly to the elemental PSI he learned from Kumatora during the Substance incident. It wasn't like he had many offensive attacks. Because he was so used to fighting the chimera in his homeland, PK Love wasn't safe either. He might have accidentally hit one of Red's Pokémon. He couldn't mentally guard them the way he had done to his friends. The accident with Ness showed him just how easy it was for him to mess up with his signature PSI.

"So, Luc, you ready to test that PSI of yours on last time?" the black haired boy taunted. PSI sparked around him as he readied himself.

"Oh please, like you care whether I'm ready or not," Lucas responded. With that, they began this fight. There were no winners in this fight, just two very beat up losers.

* * *

Lucas was starting to wonder if that training session was a trap. He was used too much energy. When he went to bed he was sore. When he woke up, he was sore. After breakfast, he was still sore. He felt a little lower on PSI than he would like as well. Normally a nap completely recharged it. That only time that changed was when he was so exhausted him couldn't recharge.

When he went to go meet up with Red for a pre-match strategy meeting, he quickly discovered that his friend wasn't in any better condition. Pikachu wasn't respecting the rules again. Though they were better off than they used to me, Red was currently stinking of charred flesh. That meant he must have taken a few good hits.

"The smell just doesn't go away," Red had explained when he caught his friend gagging. "I've washed off. I guess it just needs a little time to air out. Don't worry. With time, I'll be smelling as fresh as a daisy again."

With that, they continued their strategy meeting. The two of them had the advantage of working very well together. Additionally, they knew their opponents very well. Red knew Ness' fighting style, at least. Lucas didn't know much about Pikachu, but Red was more than willing to fill him in on all the little details. They were both quick fighters who had a fairly good range on their attacks. Ness had a wide range of different elemental attacks while Pikachu only had electric.

Though they didn't have as much to work with as they wanted, the two boys managed to come up with what they thought would be a good idea. The main part of the strategy was for Red. He had to select which of his Pokémon to use first. He could always switch them out, but he considered it best not to. It took a while for the Pokémon to adjust to being out of the ball, and that meant that Lucas would have to take the brunt of the attack during that period.

The match arrived quicker than they expected. The two arrived a few minutes early, to find their veterans were already at the brawl selection room. Normally, brawlers would have some choice over the rules. Today was different, though, because it was a probationary fight for two newcomers. Everyone had to follow the same rules for this fight. That was why two fights couldn't take place at the same time.

The stage they would be using was called Final Destination. It was apparently very bare bones when it came to a brawl stage. They would also not be using items. Items gave veterans an advantage because they knew more about them. Though new items had been added this year, those would be turned off too. Apparently there had been some debate on whether to include this odd new item called a Smash Ball, but eventually that had been turned off too. It was supposed to be a surprise for everyone when it debuted.

"Ready for you first big loss?" Ness taunted Lucas as they got into their positions on the teleportation pads. The taunt was in good nature, but it did get the small blond a little worked up.

"More like are you ready for the humiliation of getting your butt handed to you by a pair of newcomers," Lucas called back. This got his black haired friend to smile. Both PSI boys were finally in the spirit to fight. Lucas knew his friend had been worried he had no fighting spirit. Though the blond didn't like fighting, he didn't like losing either. He would not let Ness win this match easily.

("I'm going to enjoy this fight,") Pikachu began maliciously. ("I've been holding my power back every time I zapped that damned trainer. Now I can show him what an electric type can really do!")

Red was blissfully unaware of his veteran's taunts. Once the small mouse remembered the boy couldn't understand him, he gave the trainer a quick zap. The tall boy jumped up and glared at the electric type. He wasn't going to try any smack talk though. If he had, he wouldn't have time to finish. A white light formed around all of them. Suddenly, they were in the most beautiful place Lucas had ever seen.

The boy had always been fond of star gazing. This was something beyond that, though. The world was full of stars. In every direction he looked, he was just surrounded by stars. It was absolutely amazing. If all the brawls took place in places as cool as this, Lucas wouldn't mind being in this competition at all. Red seemed to be having a similar reaction to this place, much to the amusement of the veterans.

Lucas would have liked to just stare at this strange world for a bit longer, but he didn't have that chance. About thirty second after the four brawlers arrived, so did Master Hand. He wasn't on top of the stage like the rest of them. Instead he was floating in space. Of course things like being swept away or gravity didn't matter for the god like hand. Even odder, was the strange box behind him. It was full of chairs, likely for anyone that wanted to watch the fight.

Lucas really wasn't expecting to see anyone in it, but he was pleasantly surprised. Toon Link gave him a little wave from the box. His fight had been earlier that day. The taller blond was ashamed to admit he missed it due to his strategy meeting with Red. He'd heard that Toon Link did well though. His partner had been Diddy, a small monkey, and the two of them had used their superior speed to dance around their veterans, Link and Donkey Kong. Speaking of Link, he was in the spectators' seats as well. He didn't look like he wanted to be there. He was probably dragged by Toon.

"It looks like you all arrived on time," Master Hand began. In Lucas didn't know better, he might have felt that was directed at someone. Ah, there came the guilt from Toon Link. He must have been late to his match. "I will go over the rules once again. This is a one stock fight. One knock out and it's over for you. No items will be used either. Now, fight fairly and have some fun. Match… Begin!"

There it was, the beginning of the fight. Lucas braced himself. Pikachu and Ness where already rocketing towards him. Ivysaur had come of her ball as well. While Lucas had guarded, the grass type Pokémon lashed out with her vines. She managed to hit Ness and send him back a little bit. Pikachu, on the other hand, was a smaller target and therefore more difficult to hit. The electric type had managed to jump over the vine. Now the mouse's target had changed. He was no longer after Lucas. He went after Ivysaur.

Seeing that Ness had recovered, Lucas took this chance to split the other team up. The pair of newcomers had already agreed that they would go after their own veterans. They did know them best, after all. The blond boy charged his fellow PSI user, stick at the ready. It clashed with Ness' bat. Both of their weapons were renforced by PSI and would not snap so easily. Though a stick would normally be weaker, Lucas had a little more PSI than Ness. Ness made up for it in physical strength, though.

"Remember to keep your guard up!" Ness called, as if they were still training. Right away, Lucas knew what this meant. He tried to jump back and separate from his friend in time, but it was already too late. Ness had managed to kick him directly in the stomach. It sent the blond flying back a few feet. He was far from done this battle, though.

Lucas dug his feet into the platform even more to stop his sliding. Finding himself in a crouched position, he used this to his advantage. He rocketed toward the other boy. Instead of striking with his stick, he reached out and released a silent PK Fire. Ness wasn't prepared for this and took the brunt of the attack. It wasn't as effective as the kick, but it did some damage. All the attack really managed to do was make the black haired boy smile. He was having fun, and to Lucas' surprise, so was he.

Lucas didn't like fighting, but when he was fighting Ness, knowing they couldn't really hurt each other, it was something different. This was just a game. He was really starting to enjoy it. Another round of blows was exchanged. It was stick versus bat again. This time, Lucas was ready for any kicks Ness had in store for him. They leapt apart after a second of contact.

PSI surged through the air as Ness prepared a PK Flash. Lucas covered his eyes to avoid the tear effect that always came from that attack. To his surprise, this was just a diversion. Ness charged him again. For the first time, he was hit with the full brunt of that baseball bat. It sent him sliding off the edge of the platform. He might have gone down if it wasn't for his secret companion.

"Rope Snake!" the blond called. At the sound of his voice, the red snake jumped out of his pocket into his hand. He used it to hook onto the edge of the platform ad swing himself back up. He'd rather not use the snake. That always led to the tiny creature going on a rant about how this was a job that no ordinary rope or snake could do. He was really going to get it later.

This swinging gave Lucas an advantage. He landed behind Ness. Before the other boy could react, the blond lashed out with Rope Snake. The hybrid creature hung onto his friend tightly. This allowed Lucas to prepare a powerful PK Freeze. He planted it directly in his friend's back. Rope Snake released just in time. This caused Ness to go flying across the battle field.

On the other side of the stage, Ivysaur and Pikachu were still fighting. The two Pokémon both looked sore, but ready to continue. Red, however, had been able to see the signal of Lucas pulling out his Rope Snake. The trainer could only smirk at this. He whistled to his Pokémon. The grass type of was also aware of the plan. She slipped forward and wrapped her vines around Pikachu. Finally, she tossed him directly at Ness.

The two teammates crashed into each other. They were stunned for a split second, but the damage done to them wasn't enough to knock them out. Lucas cursed beneath his breath. He had gotten over excited and used the secret technic too early in the match. Now his friend would be watching out for grabs. This would make the fight much more troublesome.

A PK Fire was shot Lucas' way. The blond boy set up a PK Magnet just in time to block the attack. This left his other side exposed though. The other PSI user took advantage of this. He jumped over Lucas and kicked him from the unguarded side. The blond psychic slid across the ground, hissing in pain. He nearly ran into Ivysaur, who was also struggling. He couldn't let the two fights combine. They didn't know what Ness and Pikachu could do together.

"If this is a simplistic battle, I can't wait to see what it's like with items," Lucas called to his friend. The black haired boy gave him another big smile.

"You won't be saying that tomorrow, when the items are activated." Ness' smile faded as he readied his bat again. Lucas could see he was layering even more PSI onto it. From then on, the strikes would be much more powerful. As a result, the blond did the same with his stick.

They charged each other again. Now the PSI was making the air thick as their weapons hit each other. Instead of only one of them being pushed back, the force sent them both back. It didn't stop them though. They rushed forward and clashed three more time, each with the same result. On the fourth attempt, Lucas decided to switch things up. Instead of attacking with his stick, he slid under the other boy's swing. Once he was on the ground, he placed his arms beside his head to brace himself. Using the force of his full body, Lucas kicked Ness with both legs. It hit him right in the unguarded chest.

Ness went flying this time. The blond smirked. This was probably the end of the match. But it wasn't. Instead, his friend pulled off a mid-air PK Thunder. He didn't even send it at Lucas, he sent it at himself. This send the black haired PSI used rocketing toward his blond friend at an amazing speed. It was far too fast for Lucas to dodge. All he could do was take the blow as Ness lashed out at him with his yo-yo.

Lucas went flying backwards. While Pikachu was able to dodge him, Ivysaur was not so lucky. He slammed into the grass type and sent her flying over the edge. She was too far gone for recovery, so in a flash of light, both the grass type and her trainer were brought over to the spectators' booth. The worst possible case had been realized. It was now Lucas versus two veterans. They weren't just two veteran, they were both members of the Original Twelve. He didn't stand a chance.

That didn't mean he wouldn't try, though. Lucas was no longer sliding towards the edge thanks to Ivysaur, but he was still on the ground. A bat neared him, and he instinctively flung himself up. He saw that both Pikachu and Ness were at the ready. They were confident, but he wasn't going to let them take him down easily.

Pikachu charged him, but the blond PSI used smacked the electric rodent away with his stick. Though he was one of the fastest smashers, Pikachu lacked strength. Ness was the bigger threat to the blond right now. He had to KO his friend or be humiliated as a weak smasher. So Lucas charged forward. Pikachu was still stunned. The blond just ran past him and swung his bat at his friend.

Ness was a fast learner, because he had ducked right under the bat and smashed a fist into Lucas' gut. That one hurt, it hurt badly. It sent the blond PSI user flying off the edge of the platform. When had he let himself get so close to the edge? He didn't know. Lucky for the blond, he was a quick learner too. He sent out a PK Thunder of his own and redirected it back at himself.

Like Ness had before, Lucas went flying back onto the platform. He crashed into the other PSI user and knocked him off. Ness was going too quickly to recover. With a flash of light, he too was teleported to the spectator's booth.

All that PSI use had taken a lot out of the still exhausted Lucas. He wasn't sure if he could defeat the other veteran. No, he was sure he couldn't. This was a brawl though. He had no choice but to try. The electric mouse looked like he'd taken a lot of damage too. The yellow smashers were both panting as they readied to clash once more.

("Well, well, you aren't as much as a pansy as Red always makes you sound,") the electric mouse taunted. ("That doesn't mean you aren't going down, though. I'll fry you up nice and crispy and give you to Ness as a victory present.")

"Sorry," Lucas managed between pants. "But Ness doesn't like fried things. He does like steak though. I hope he likes the Pikachu steak he's getting later."

("Oh, you are so going down!") Pikachu was unable to handle his temper. He charged the blond. This time, the stick wasn't enough to stop him. Lucas' swing went right over the little Pokémon's head. Now Lucas saw that low on strength didn't mean much. Pikachu could still send him flying. He didn't go that far, though. He still had plenty of space behind him. Pikachu was closer to the edge that Lucas was.

The blond smirked and aimed a PK Fire at the mouse. It connected, but the Pokémon simply brushed it off. Sparks formed around the creature. For the first time in a while, a real lightning bolt lashed out at Lucas.

* * *

Come here *****. Come to your mother. _The ghostly voice of Lucas' mother had said. She'd finally gotten through to the Masked Man. He removed his mask at long last. His face looked just like *****'s. He was *****._

_***** gave Lucas a bitter sweet smile. The blond didn't understand. They were finally together again, why did ***** look so sad. That answer came a few seconds later. The boy who Lucas had longed to see for these three years lifted his sword to the sky and called on one last lightning bolt._

_Lucas covered his face with his hands. He was already so badly injured. If this hit him, he really would die. He'd thought he'd gotten through to *****. He'd thought he had his ******* back. The realization hit Lucas just before the lightning did._

_**Krshink!**_

_The lightning reflected off of Lucas' Franklin badge. It was sent rocketing back at the boy that had called for it. Despite that, the smiled never left *****'s face._

* * *

When had everything gotten so dark? When had he stuffed his ears with cotton? Lucas could neither see nor hear the world around him. He felt the sting of Pikachu's attack on him, but he couldn't see. He couldn't hear. His flight or fight instincts were triggered. He had the choice between staying here and seeing nothing, or running away.

The boy decided to run away. He pulled himself to his feet and tried to run. Two steps, and then his feet connected with nothingness. The boy toppled forward into the void. He went down and down, until he felt a warm sensation surround him. Then he was in a chair.

He felt people around him. He grasped at their minds, trying to figure out who they were. It wasn't until then that he realized he was shaking. There was a choking feeling in his throat. Something was wrong, wrong, wrong. He searched deeper into the people around him. His frantic PSI would not let him pick up words, but he got feelings. They were worried. They wanted him to be okay.

These minds felt familiar. Four of them were very trustworthy. One was not very familiar. One was terrifying. Lucas sought out the most trust worthy of the minds here. He reached out to that person and clung to them as his vision and hearing slowly returned.

He found himself shaking and clinging to Ness. His friend was muttering comforting words to him and allowing his PSI to wash over Lucas in the most calming way he could. He wanted to protect the blond.

* * *

"_He did it to protect you, Luc."_

* * *

The blond pushed his friend away. He didn't need anyone to protect him. With his sight returning, he found his way out of the spectator's booth and stormed into the mansion on unsteady legs. He had to be alone. People would either call him a coward, or they would try to comfort him. He didn't need their comfort.

He found himself heading up the stairs. To the bedroom? No, Ness would just find him there and try to protect him again. He needed to be alone, absolutely alone. There was only one place in the house that he was sure that nobody else would go.

He made his way to the second floor. Lucas walked past the kitchen and made his way into the empty library. He went to a table in the back, where he couldn't be seen from the door and crawled under it. He felt something slid around near him. He realized that Rope Snake was still hiding in his clothes. He grabbed the snake and was about to throw him away when the snake spoke.

"I'm sorry I failed you." The snake sounded neither afraid or anger. He just sounded sad. It was like he understood the pain of the boy who carried him. Lucas found his anger slipping away. This wasn't protection, right? It was just comfort. He pulled the red snake closer to his chest.

"It's alright… You didn't fail anyone. This is my fault. It's all my fault…" Lucas muttered to the snake. "I'm so sorry… I'm sorry Ness. I'm sorry Rope Snake. I'm sorry Dad. I'm sorry Duster, Kumatora, Boney. I'm so, so, so sorry Cl…"

He couldn't even finish the name. Despair gripped him hard. All Lucas could he was sit there and wish he could cry.


	7. Some Advice

**Not much to say before this chapter. I bet you can guess where the scene I delete was supposed to be, though. Or, at the very least, what it was. I cut it for being too strong of foreshadowing. We are still less than half way in. Or at least, less than half way to the point I intended to stop at.**

**Also, teenage boys swear a lot.**

* * *

One would think that sharing a room with someone would mean you'd have to talk them at some point. Three days of pointed silence between the two PSI boys proved whoever said that absolutely wrong. It wasn't that Ness wasn't trying to start a conversation, he was. The problem is that Lucas wouldn't respond at all. The most activity he saw from his blond friend was for Lucas to get out of bed and head to a brawl.

Even after whatever had happened to Lucas the day before, the brawls never stopped. It irritated Ness a bit. He knew that was the real reason they were there, but it didn't seem fair. His friend was in no condition to fight. Master Hand knew that. Normally, he gave the smashers breaks if they seemed too stressed. It seemed they were too short on time right now, though. Ness understood the reason, he just didn't like it.

Lucas had slowly been slipping down the ranks of the fighters. He'd done well for himself in his first match, but he hadn't been doing so well in the last few fights. Now he had fallen into the F Tier with the majority of the villains. Regardless of his strengths or weaknesses, when someone dropped down a tier, it was extremely hard to climb back up. Ness didn't want to see his friend fall behind and possibly be cut from the next tournament.

Even though rank didn't really matter, the thought was still there. These brawls were fun. Why would anyone want to leave? Lucas didn't seem to be having fun though. This only got Ness all the more worried. He just wanted to hit something out of frustration. He was right here. He should be able to help his friend, but all he could do is sit there and watch while the blond boy tuned out the world around him.

More upsetting than anything was the fact that the look was back. When Ness first saw Lucas, before the Subspace Incident even started, he had this dead look in his eyes. It scared the other boy. He'd seen broken people before. He'd seen what had happened to them. Lucas was a fellow PSI user, someone similar to him, and therefore he felt he had to protect the other boy. That's why he followed him to the Ruined Zoo. After that point, Lucas changed for the better.

He couldn't let his friend go back to that. If he let the despair swallow up Lucas, he would never forgive himself. They were best friends now. They'd been through a lot together. More than anything, though, Ness felt that Lucas his responsibility.

It was his fault Lucas was here. He'd asked Master Hand if he could please bring in another PSI user last tournament. He'd meant for it to be Paula or Poo, since they were both so strong. He didn't realize that there were other worlds with PSI and that Master Hand might choose one from there. He'd heard Lucas complain about not wanting to be here. If he'd never complained to Master Hand, he bet Luc would never have been invited to the brawl.

Ness felt guilty. He felt like all the bad stuff that had happened to Lucas was somehow his fault. He didn't know why. It was clear bad things happened even before Master Hand called him here. Why did Ness feel like he contributed to that? It was just a feeling he couldn't shake. He just had to help Lucas, even if it killed him.

* * *

Red knew Lucas best. That was something that the trainer always held over Ness. While he and Lucas were best friends, much to the trainer's disappointment, Red would always know the blond the best. If anybody knew what the wrong with the little blond, it would be the Pokémon trainer. As such, he was the first person Ness turned to on his quest for answers.

He caught his tall friend in the middle of some odd game with his Pokémon. In this game, he would pull out balls of yarn and throw them at his Pokémon. Said Pokémon would try to head-butt the yarn back at their trainer. The more time they could do it in a row, the better their score. Ness and Lucas had offered to help once, but apparently it was an important bonding activity between a trainer and his team. Pokémon stuff was just plain weird.

"Hey, Red!" Ness called. His interruption caused the trainer to toss a ball of purple yarn high over Charizard's head. The dragon-like Pokémon have an annoyed soon.

"Oh, Ness…" Red sounded rather annoyed. He turned to his trainer friend. "I wasn't expecting to see you here. I thought you'd still be with Lucas."

The black haired psychic narrowed his eyes at Red. When their blond friend wasn't around, he could be a bit snappier, mostly because he felt replaced. "Oh please. He won't even talk to me. That's why I came to talk to you. I thought maybe you'd know what was wrong with him."

"You're the one he's closest with." The irritation was still clear in the trainer's voice. "He hasn't talked to me either. I figured you were the only one he was talking to, since you live together."

"Nope. He's ignoring us both." Ness sighed. "If he's been talking with Toon Link, I'm gonna feel so betrayed."

"Nah. Toonie said Luc won't talk to him either. I don't think he's spoken with anyone except Rope Snake," Red explained, getting a surprised reaction from Ness.

"Wait, Rope Snake can talk?" the boy asked. "I mean, well, I kind of thought it was some kind of weapon. I didn't realize it was a living thing. Oh, wow. I feel bad for it now. I guess I shouldn't have ignored it all the time."

"Yep, Rope Snake can talk. He's fluent in Kanto, or whatever the hell we all speak here." The trainer gave a little sigh. "If you're looking for someone who knows what's going on with Lucas, the snake is your best bet. It's the one that knows all about his home world. It's not a brawler either. That means it not bound by the rules of the competition."

"Thanks a ton Red! You're the best." Ness smiled to the other boy. He wasn't expecting such a convenient answer.

"Don't thank me yet, Ness. That snake's not gonna leave Lucas' side while he's still upset. If you want to talk to him, you're going to have to trick him away." Red looked sadly at his Pokémon. "I've been trying it for a while. The snake won't leave. I think that might not be the best way either."

Ness paused for a moment. He hadn't realized how hard his friend had been trying to get in contact with Lucas. "What do you mean?"

"Well, some problems can't be solved by talking about them. Sometimes talking just makes the wound hurt even more. I've not sure if it's how it is with Luc, but that's how it is with some people. Sometimes the answer to the problem is to just sit there and do nothing…" the trainer explained. "I knew a guy like that. His name was Green. He and I didn't get along the best, but I consider him a friend. He was so full of pride that he wouldn't let anyone beat him. When I beat him in a Pokémon battle, he lost his temper. Every time I tried to talk to him about his issue, it got worse and worse. If someone isn't accepting your words, you should just stop. My friendship with Green became toxic after that. I don't want the same happening to you and Luc."

"It won't. I promise. If he's not ready to talk to me, I'm not going to force him," the hatted boy reassured. "I just want him to feel better. I worry about him. I just don't know how to help."

"You'll figure it out." Red placed a hand on his friend's back. It was one of his more comforting gestures. "You're the one that gets him the most. When the time comes, he'll let you know what he needs."

"You think I get him the most?" Not that Ness didn't agree, but Red had always been giving hints that he thought he could be a better friend to Lucas than the black haired boy could. It was surprising to hear the other boy finally admit it.

"You're both psychic, and if I didn't know better, I'd say you were from the same world. If anyone can understand all that Lucas has in his cowlicked little head, it would be you." The trainer turned back to his Pokémon. "You just have to wait for him to talk to you."

Ness cracked a wide grin. "Are you sure you aren't psychic? You seem to get people pretty well."

"Well, then, are you sure you actually are? You don't seem to understand other people at all," the other boy shot back. "I thought with the mind reading thing, you'd pick up a few things."

"Mind reading not a very good thing. I don't do it unless I have to." The black haired psychic's grin faded. He'd used mind reading on a good friend once and regretted what he heard. If he hadn't been so curious, their friendship would never have been damaged the way it was. "Besides, using it without someone's permission is wrong."

"Goodie two shoes," Red taunted. He'd notice how the mention of mind reading had upset Ness and resorted to so playful taunting. "I guess that experience over comes natural talent every time. I'm more empathetic than the guy that can read minds. My mom would be so proud of me."

"Oh knock it off, _Ed_." Red's taunts had managed to cheer Ness up a little. He gave the trainer a playful shove. "Some people just aren't born with your natural empathy. It's a shame about your face though. Not everyone gets lucky in every area."

"I could say the same about yours, if I wasn't insulting Luc too." The taller boy rolled his eyes. He pulled some more yarn out of his bag to continue his game with his Pokémon. Speaking of those three, they were looking rather impatient, especially Charizard. "Go and bother someone else. I was in the middle of a very intense game of Head It, you know."

"Fine, fine, whatever. Good talking to you, Red. I'll see you later." Ness waved to the other boy. He was about a half foot away when he realized something was coming at him. He turned a bit too late. A ball of yarn bounced off his forehead.

Red looked like he was stifling a laugh. It only got worse as Ness gave him a big frown. The Pokémon seemed amused as well.

"I'm not a Pokémon, idiot," the psychic hissed at his friend. Despite how venomous he was trying to sound, his words carried no poison. If he weren't still upset over Lucas, he might have laughed himself.

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that…" the trainer muttered before going back to what he was doing. Ness scanned the top layer of his thoughts. His plan had worked. He really ended up cheering the psychic up.

"Idiot…" Ness muttered as he walked away from the taller boy. Now he just had to talk to that damned Rope Snake. Needing space or not, Lucas wouldn't be able to keep his secrets for long.

* * *

It wasn't long into Ness' search for his little blond friend and the snake that knew his secrets that he was stopped. He found a blond, alright, but it was the wrong one. Whenever Toon Link managed to force his emotions down enough that Ness couldn't sense him coming from a mile away it mean the cat eye boy meant serious business. Right now was one of those times. Ness hadn't even noticed as the other boy came up and grabbed his arm.

"Ness, we need to talk." Even his tone was serious. "It's about Lucas."

Well, that got the black haired boy's attention. He looked to the short blond with a raised brow. "Luc? Did he talk to you or something? Damn it, I jinxed it…"

"No, no he hasn't talked to me." Toon Link gave a confused look. "I was just wanting to talk to you because of what happened three days ago. I know I haven't been able to talk to you lately, but that's because I've been put into a lot of fights. Apparently beating Link is a big deal, even though he's a lower tier fighter."

"Yeah, the ranking have always been a little messed up. I think it's just Master Hand's way of making people with low self-esteem feel better. I mean, even Mario's in the F tier! …Well, E tier now…" The psychic trailed off, still upset over Lucas' fall in ranking.

"I don't think so…" the blond swordsman muttered. "If that were the case, Luc would be ranked higher than Meta Knight."

"True."

"But, anyway, I wanted to talk to you about something important, so listen up." Toon Link got that determined look on his face again. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. "I wanted to ask you something first. Is it possible for Master Hand to adjust the fights?"

"…What do you mean?" Ness asked. "If you mean stack the contest, so that it's easier for one brawler to win, then no. He can't do that."

"That wasn't what I meant at all," the other boy explained. "I wanted to know if it was possible to ask him to make it so that Lucas and Pikachu don't have to fight again. I know we're all supposed to fight each other at one point, but he just can't fight Pikachu. Not the way he is…"

"What's wrong with Pikachu?" Ness had thought the electric mouse was an honourable opponent. Apparently he was wrong. The boy frowned and narrowed his eyes. "Did he cheat? Did he blackmail Luc?! If you saw anything you have to-"

"No, shut up." The cat eyed boy narrowed said eyes at his friend. "That's not it at all. Pikachu isn't the bad guy here. None of us al. Except maybe Master Hand, if he planned that match knowing Luc was astraphobic."

"Astraphowhat?" the psychic replied.

"Wow, you're really dense, aren't you?" the short swordsman scoffed.

"You are the second person to say that to me today," Ness replied bashfully.

"No surprise there." There was a slight venomous edge to the blond's words.

"Whatever! Now tell me what the hell this astrophobia is! Fear of space or something?" Ness started in an annoyed tone before slipping into confusion. If it was a fear of space, Lucas should have been set off much early. He knew the boy had looked at his surroundings. He actually looked like he was enjoying the surrounds, so that made no sense.

"Astraphobia. With an A!" Toon Link corrected. "Astraphobia is the fear of thunder and lightning. How come you didn't notice this? I mean, we both say what happened. Pikachu called lightning down from the sky. It hit Luc and then he started screaming and stumbling off the stage."

"He's not scared of lightning. Hell, he can use PK Thunder himself!" the psychic countered. "If he was afraid of lighting, he would have flipped out when I used it. Even if he missed that, he would have flipped out when he hit himself with it! Your theory's bunk, Toonie."

"No, no it's not." The blond's look got even colder. "There's a different between what you two did and what Pikachu did. The main difference is in shape. What you guys use is ball lightning. Dangerous yes, but not on the level of real lightning. More importantly, you can control it. What Pikachu used looked more like the real stuff. He's afraid of the real stuff, not what you use."

"Someone can't just pick and choose what they're afraid of!" Ness tried to argue. He was immediately shut down by the look that the swordsman gave him.

"He didn't pick, that's just how things are. It's like being afraid of a lion, but not a house cat. You might say those are two really different thing, but they aren't to some people. That's like me trying to argue with you and say since they are both felines, then you should be afraid of both of them." Toon Link finished with a small sigh. "Do you get it now?"

"I guess. It's just weird," the black haired boy muttered. "What I don't get is why he freaked out afterwards? Did I do something wrong?"

"No clue." The blond boy shrugged.

"Hey, you're Mister Answers! Can't you come up with anything?" Ness shot to his friend. Toon Link had all the answers to the questions he didn't even plan on asking, but none of the ones that he did.

"You've got me there. I don't know Luc the way you do. He and I don't really hang out when you're not around. This isn't something I can deduce just from being around him. I thought you might have any idea. I wanted to see if I could pry it out of you," the short boy admitted.

"Sorry, friend, but I've got nothing. The best I can get is that he has something to do with his past, or his journey." The black haired boy placed his hand on his forehead out of exasperation. "We can't talk about that though. I wanted to ask him what was wrong, but he wouldn't answer me. I don't know if it's something I did wrong, or it's that Lucas is just still trying to get over the lightning. I'm not even sure if I should apologise to him over not!"

"Apologise anyway. That's not going to hurt," Toon Link advised. "I don't think you did anything wrong, Ness. He seemed happy until the lightning happened. After that, all you did was try to make him feel better. He came to you for comfort."

"I guess…" Ness trailed off. He flinched as he felt a hand on his back. His blond friend was currently patting him there.

"Don't be afraid to talk this thing over with him. You're the best one here for that. Even Red said you'd be best and you know he'd rather eat a Pokeball than admit that," the blond continued. "I guess I didn't help at all, huh?"

"No, you were a ton of help. You and Luc do need to do some bonding, though. You're a great friend and he should see that too. Plus, you can be the blond squad." Ness cracked a little smile. "You're also surprisingly smart."

"That's the side effect of spending weeks riding around in a talking boat that insisted on educating me in the ways of the world," the cat eyed boy replied, much to Ness's confusion.

"You're world is really weird, Toonie."

This got a little chuckle out of the blond boy. "If you think my adventure is weird, you wouldn't believe what some of the other Links have done. I'll tell you about it some time."

"But isn't that against the rules?" Ness asked.

"Yeah, but I don't think me talking about my adventures, or the adventures of the past heroes could change your world at all. Big Link and I do it all the time," Toon Link explained. "But that's for another time. Go and talk to Lucas before he gets called to another fight."

"Fine, fine. Bye Toonie!" The psychic boy headed off as soon as he gave his greeting. He hadn't realized Lucas had any other matches today. What was an F tier brawler doing in so many fights?

* * *

Ness got his answer in a way he never wanted or expected.

He had missed the chance to find Lucas before the other boy's next match. He'd checked all his friend's favourite spot. He wasn't in the training room, or even the library. The only other place he would be was their room, but Lucas was trying to avoid Ness. Why would he head back there? Ness never even bothered checking that room. Now he knew that may have been a mistake.

He finally met up with Lucas by the training room. He expected to see his friend alone, or with Rope Snake. What he found was his friend cornered by a pair of villains. Bowser and Wario stood in front of the blond boy. It wasn't like Lucas was doing anything to escape, though. He just stood there and took their taunting. From his spot on the other side of the training room, Ness wasn't able to hear what the villains were saying. All he could hear was their laughs. He didn't need to hear. He knew that kind of laugh. They were laughing at his friend. He couldn't allow that.

As he neared, the black haired psychic was able to pick up some of their conversation. Needless to say, this only angered the boy further.

"…come on, just one more fight. I'm about to make D tier, I'm sure of it. If a weakling kid like you made it to E tier, then it's gonna be a pretty easy ride," Bowser taunted.

"D tier? You're all the way down there? Those of us in B tier don't need to fight little kids to get stronger," Wario chimed in. "Not that it isn't fun. Come on, kiddo. Don't you want to pay me back for turning your little friend into a statue?"

"I already beat you once… That was more than enough," Lucas muttered softly. Ness could hardly hear him, even though he was currently right behind the two villains.

"Oh come on! Everyone knows that one fight in never enough. Ten, twenty more, then you'll start to feel better. Or at least my win-lose ratio will." Wario gave a loud laugh, his garlicky breathe filling the air. "This is tournament, kiddo. If you can't fight, go home and cry to your mommy."

Lucas flinched at the end of Wario's statement. Normally, Ness couldn't feel any of the other boy's emotions, but at the moment, they were overwhelming. How could anyone _not _feel this? The blond was furious and hurt. There was pain beneath his rage. His PSI began to crackle. Ness started to panic. These weren't the training mats. If Lucas lashed out at them here, he could get in some serious trouble. Before his blond friend could lash out, the black haired boy interfered.

"Why don't you and your koopa friend go fuck off, Wario?" Ness called. This caused the fat man to turn towards him. There was a slight bit of fear in his eyes. At first, he must have thought it was someone more dangerous, like Mario or Samus.

"A little D tier kiddo, telling a B tier off? Don't you know the difference between our power?" The mustached man leaned close, close enough that Ness almost gagged from the smell of his breath.

"The tiers listed is a load of bullshit. Mario and Link are two of the strongest guys here, but they were put in F tier. We all know that you could never defeat Mario in a fair match. There's no way that you're as strong as that list suggests," the psychic boy growled. "I could kick you around this training room if I really wanted to, but I don't. I don't want anything to do with you. So, as I said before, FUCK OFF!"

If Ness wasn't psychic, he wasn't have picked up Wario's fear. The man still looked confident in his own power. There was a slight bit of fear in his eyes though. They flicked to Bowser for a moment, as if testing to see if the koopa king had notice his fear.

"Fine, play with your little boyfriend. You're no fun." Wario turned and left. It was clear he didn't want to deal with a fight right now. At least to the psychics. Bowser looked a little more confused.

"Wait, so we're not teaching them a lesson?" the koopa asked slowly. He looked to the angry Ness and the still sparking Lucas.

"If you want to get your tail handed to you by a pair of kids, be my guest," the blacked haired boy began. He didn't need to finish. The koopa looked annoyed, but he left with his fellow villain. That left Ness with Lucas. He looked to his blond friend, expecting him to calm down. But Lucas didn't calm down.

Instead, he actually looked madder than before. The boy gnashed his teeth together. He was barely able to hold back that anger. There was another emotion there too. Ness couldn't quite figure out what it was. Lucas was clearly hiding that one.

"Leave me alone, Ness." The words were soft, but they were venomous. Much liked how the blond was forced to hold back his emotions, he also had to make sure they didn't slip into his voice. "I don't need to you protect me. I'm not some little kid who can't survive on his own!"

"Of course not." Lucas seemed shocked by his answer. "You're strong Luc, insanely strong. If you went all out, I have no doubt you'd vaporize those idiots. But you can't. Not in a fight and especially not out here. I'm still your veteran. It's my job to make sure you don't."

"Well, maybe I don't need you as a veteran anymore," the angry blond snapped. "I've been with you three weeks. I'm about ready to move out. Then you won't have to worry about me anymore."

Ness rolled his eyes. "Jeez Luc, I'm not sure if you're mad at me or worried about me. If you want to move out, that's fine. I can't stop you, though I think you could benefit from staying a little while longer."

Lucas looked away from his friend. "…Fine, I'll stay, but I don't need you to take care of me!"

"So that's what's getting you upset." Ness shook his head in exasperation. "You're a little bit of an idiot, aren't you? I'm not taking care of you. I'm just being your friend. Remember, cause that's what we are, friends. That means I watch your back and you watch mine."

"I don't need it," the blond muttered. "I've taken care of myself for a while. I can keep doing it. I don't need you, or Red, or Toon Link, or Cl-"

It was like the blond choked on the last word. At the last moment, he stopped, looked dazed for a second, and then stopped talking. It was like it was a forbidden name.

"Lucas, I don't care if you fucking raised yourself. I'm still gonna care for you like I do for all my friends, and you're gonna put up with it." Ness gave the blond a look that said he wasn't going to back down on this point.

"I can't back down on this!" the blond hissed. "I don't want you to get hurt because I'm not able to fight my own battles. I don't want you to get hurt for me again!"

"And I'm not gonna. Damn it, Luc." The black haired boy just shook his head. "So you're still upset over that thing with Wario! You could have just said that! Neither of us is in any danger anymore. It's fine to let someone get close to you."

The slightly taller psychic looked away from his friend. "No Ness, it's not safe. You can think this place is safe all you like, but it's not. An absolutely safe place doesn't exist. It never will. If you're safe from physical harm, there's still psychological damage. I can't let that happen to you either."

"The only damage you're doing to me is what you're doing right now. We are best friends and that is final. I'm not going to let you change this just because you think this friendship is going to get me hurt." The black haired boy turned to leave. As he did, he found a hand clutching the back of his shirt.

"…Wait… Ness, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. I never meant that we couldn't be friends. I just worry about you…" The blond's voice was quiet as he spoke to his friend.

"I got that, Luc. I just don't get why? Was it because you knocked me out of the brawl? Was it because of Pikachu?" Ness took note of how his friend flinched at the mention of the electric mouse. It seemed Toon Link was right on that subject.

"It's not that. It's…" Lucas made a sound like he was having difficulty speaking. "I… I think that I'm forgetting something, something really important."

"Forgetting something?" the black haired boy asked. He finally turned and looked at the blond. Lucas looked like he was trying really hard to remember something, but the memories just wouldn't return. "What do you think you're forgetting? Why is it affecting you?"

"I know what I'm forgetting." The blond looked at the ground sadly. "I think… I think someone died for me. I can't remember his name, or his face. I remember his death and I remember that he died for me. I remember Kuma telling me that he died so that I could live but… I think… I think I should have been the one to die. I know I had something really important to do, but he was important too. It hurts to think about him…"

Ness leaned close to his blond friend. He wanted to hug him again, but considering the story, he assumed that wouldn't go over well. Hugs were not the answer to everything, Ness.

"Why…?" He couldn't ask why they died for his friend. "Why do you think you're forgetting things? Do you think it has something to do with travelling here?"

"…Maybe…" Lucas refused to look away from the ground. "I don't know. That doesn't feel quite right, either. I think that it was something different. Maybe I choose to forget it."

"You should talk to Master Hand about this tomorrow," Ness began. "Even if it has nothing to do with coming here, I'm sure that he can help you somehow. He can show you what you forgotten, I think. I mean, he is a hand with limitless powers."

The blond finally looked to his black haired counterpart. "Thanks Ness. I'm really sorry for snapping at you."

"It's fine. I can take a few insults." Ness grinned evilly. "That's what we hatted saviours do."

Lucas frowned at the mention of the old nickname. "You think I won't punch you for using that name, but you're wrong. I'm willing to punch you. I'm will to punch you so hard."

This only got a smile out of the black haired boy. Lucas seemed to be a little happier now. His anger had subsided and their friendship was guaranteed again. As much as Ness wanted to ask Lucas about his home and his journey, he couldn't. Then again, Toon Link did say it probably didn't matter.

"Hey Luc? When you're ready, can you tell me a little about your journey?" the black haired boy asked. His question made the other boy jump slightly.

"I-isn't that against the rules?" Lucas asked nervously.

"I don't think it matters, I mean we've all kind of broken that rule. As long as we aren't from the same world, or sharing technology, it should be safe." Ness gave his friend a confident smile. "So, how about it?"

"…I think I need to think about it for a while. Maybe." The blond gave a little sigh. "Ness, can I be alone for a while?"

The black haired boy would have been insulted, if he hadn't remembered Red's words. Sometimes people needed time alone to heal. It seemed Lucas was one of those people after all. The older PSI user gave a little nod. "Alright. I'll talk to you later."

Lucas gave him a nervous smile. With that, they parted way. Though Ness was still worried about his little friend, he knew better than to stay. The thought of his relationship with Lucas becoming like Red and Green's mad him too upset. As long at the little blond was fine, so was he.


	8. A Hero's Best Friend

**I have this one weird headcanon that if Hinawa had lived, she'd try to set Claus and Kumatora up since she thinks her boy needs a girlfriend who is just as wild as he is. Meanwhile Lucas is the one with the actual crush on Kumatora.**

**Anyway, on to the one chapter that Lucas never shows up in. It took a while to write. I haven't played Wind Waker in a LONG time.**

* * *

Toon Link had always been a little envious of the rest of his friends. They had just seen each other the first day, it seemed, and became the best of friends. He was envious of that type of ability. It wasn't that he wasn't a friendly boy himself, he was. He just had trouble getting along with others his age, especially other boys.

He'd been close with his little sister back home. There weren't many other children around, so he really didn't have anyone else to talk with. Then he met Tetra. She became his first non-related to him friend, sort of. Their relationship was weird and rocky. He couldn't fully understand it himself. He'd made a few other friends over his journey, but he wasn't that close to them.

The young toon had hoped that coming here would help him make friends. It wasn't any easier though. He struggled for the first week to find someone to talk with, full of the fear of rejection. Eventually, he'd let his guard down and talked to Ness about what was wrong. That was how he made a friend. It wasn't the best friendship he could hope for, though.

Ness already had a best friend in Lucas. That left Toon Link to cling to the edge of the group as the straggler. He wondered sometimes if the other two boys in the group even considered him a friend. He wouldn't blame them if they didn't. He hardly talked to them outside of group meetings. His best attempts to get close to the group ended in trouble for him.

"Are you moping again, TL?" the young boy's roommate said. In his current state, the young hyrulian hadn't noticed Link at all.

"…I'd say no, just you always seem to know when I'm lying," the little swordsman stated. This earned a little smile from the other boy.

"That's because we're both Links. One of our similarities is that we both have a lot of trouble lying," the older Link explained. He was the experts on Links here, considering he had the memories of the previous Links who fought in the tournament.

Unlike the position of Young Link or Toon Link, this Link was considered a veteran, though it was the first time that he had fought in the tournament using his current body. That was the nature of Links though. They didn't last forever. A threat would arise and a new hero would be needed. A boy named Link would rise up to face the challenge, regardless of how old he was. Normally, the Link was in his early twenties or late teens. Some younger boys had been chosen too.

Toon Link would never understand why Master Hand selected to give Link the memories of the other Links, but not give Toon Link the memories of Young Link. He assumed it was because they were oddities in the system. Young boys should not be fighting for the sake of their world, but sometimes there was no choice. He supposed the same thing must go for Zeldas as well, since she was replaced at the same rate as the Links.

"I guess that explains a lot." The cat eyed boy forced himself to cheer up a little bit. He gave his roommate a sly look. "At least, it explains why you can't bluff in battle. No wonder you keep losing."

"Oh, that is it! I am getting you so bad!" Link at least attempted top sound threatening, but he wasn't really, especially not to the little toon. This was just another one of their little play fights. The larger Link leapt at his little roommate and began to ruffle his hair. Unfortunately, Toon Link could not do the same, since his arms were so short.

Even if the rest of his relationships fell apart, he'd always have Link as a friend. They might have a large age gap between them, but the two Links got along very well. It might be because they understood each other so well, being from the same world. It didn't matter to the toon though. He was just happy to have another Link with him.

In this last month, they had a lot of time to bond. If he wasn't so worried what the adult Link would think, Toon Link might have started to call the other boy his brother. He felt like they were brothers at least. This teasing only proved it further. Still, he knew nothing of the other boy's family. What if he already had a brother and thought Toon was trying to replace him? That could ruin their friendship, so the cat eyed boy kept his mouth closed.

Five minutes and many hair ruffles later, the two finally separated. Link had a grin on his face, as if all this drive for revenge had finally been sated. Toon Link, in return, gave the older boy a pout. He felt childish when he did this, but it was the only way he could express how he felt without the other thinking he was actually angry.

"So, what are you up to today?" the older boy finally asked. He liked to keep track of the younger boy. Toon Link assumed this was just a veteran thing.

"Well, today is my first day off," the blond boy explained. "I'm not really sure what to do with it. I mean, I think most of my friends are still fighting today. I could train, but I train every day."

"There are other things to do that don't involve fighting," Link reminded. "You can always go out back and go fishing. I mean, you have a fishing pole, right?"

"What Link doesn't?" the younger boy replied in a cheeky tone. This got a little laugh out of the older boy.

"That is true. Well, you should try fishing. Or exploring. I actually haven't seen you go outside yet." Link paused for a second. "You do know you can go outside, right?"

"Well I do now," the toon replied. This caused the older hero to shake his head. "I would have if someone told me I was allowed. It was your job to give me the tour after all. I guess you skipped out on some of the good parts."

"Hey, don't go blaming me. You should have asked if you were curious. It doesn't matter anymore, though. Now go outside. It's bad for a boy your age to get a little sun," Link concluded. He made shooing motions with his hands.

"Aye aye, sir. I'll come back with a nice, healthy sunburn." Without giving his roommate time to make another comment, Toon Link rushed out of the room. He was in a much better mood now that he knows he's allowed to go outside. The boy really missed the sun.

It was a short walk from the fifth floor to the front door. The boy looked around nervously, uncertain as to whether his older self was joking about whether he was allowed to go outside. When nobody stopped him, Toon Link was pleased to realize he really could go outside. Out of all the smashers, he'd been one of the few to remain in the mansion the entire time. He hadn't even been able to assist the others with the Subspace incident.

Like Jigglypuff and Wolf, he'd had the bad luck to be in the hall nearest Master Hand's office. He'd just been there to ask if he was allowed to send letters to his sister and Grandmother while he was here. Unfortunately, when Tabuu attacked and took the hand, he also turned the three into their trophy forms. Due to this, they were unable to help during the war, though Toon was sure they could have done something. Perhaps if they were there, Master Hand wouldn't have been so badly hurt.

It was no good thinking of that now. Toon slapped both his hands to his face to pull himself out of his melancholy mood. Today was supposed to be a happy day. He loved the outside. Letting himself get all sad before going out would not help him in the least.

When he finally did step outside, he wasn't disappointed. He knew the day would be really nice from his window. He just wasn't sure about the temperature. Today was a little bit humid. The heat wasn't that bad though. It actually reminded Toon of the warmer days on his boat. If he wasn't having such a crummy morning, he would call this a perfect day.

The young swordsman began to wonder around. The mansion was located in the middle of nowhere. From the ground, he had a better view of what it was like around here. From the angle of his window, he had difficulty seeing the courtyard. For such a large building it was rather small. All there was to it was a fountain surrounded by statues of the Original Twelve.

Outside of the courtyard was a field of flowers. For some reason, they were all gold in colour. The boy quickly realized this was because of the symbol of the tournament was represented in gold. That would explain why. Master Hand was big on the way thing looked here, as if he thought the smashers would leave if it wasn't quite perfect. Toon Link suspect that there was an ulterior motive for this, but he wasn't going to question Master Hand. That was what reckless friends were for.

Once again, the boy thought of his friend. He remembered that Lucas had mentioned a love of flowers, particularly a type known as sunflowers. Toon bet the older blond would really like this field. Perhaps he could take Lucas out here to bond someday. The boy quickly remembered that he was the last person to check out the outside. Lucas already knew of this place. He probably wouldn't be all that impressed if Toonie tried to use it as a chance to get closer to him.

Beyond the flower field was a large forest. It gave off an odd pressure. Toon Link was sure that the forest was dangerous. It could probably be used for training, if he wanted to use it. However, the small blond was fine with what he had for now.

"There's more to life than violence," he reminded himself in a forcefully cheerful tone. If he could force cheerfulness, he could obtain it. He remembered he boat friend mentioning that if one smiled, it caused certain changes to the person's brain, causing them to actually experience happiness. So far, Toon link didn't believe that. He just felt awkward when he tried that.

The boy pulled his fishing rod out from his bag and headed around back. If he remembered correctly, that was where Link said the pond was. Lucky for him, those directions were right. It took surprisingly little time to walk around the mansion. Thanks to Master Hand's dimension warping powers, the mansion was about the same size as a normal house on the outside, with the exception that it was six stories high. It always confused Toon Link how the windows worked, though. He couldn't even see any from the outside.

To his surprise, when he arrived at the pond, the blond boy saw one of his friends. He was less surprised to see his friend as to see what his friend was doing. It looked like Red was standing on the water in the middle of the lake. It seemed that Toon Link wasn't the only one that intended to fish today. The blond boy smiled a little. At least it wouldn't be a lonely experience. Fishing was fun unless nothing was biting. In that case, it could be very boring.

"Hey, Red! What's up?" the toon called to his friend. This simple gesture was enough to make Red jump. Unfortunately, at this point it became clear his friend wasn't actually standing on the water. He was standing on Squirtle's back. Since the Pokemon was so little, the moment that Red flinched, he ended up sailing into the water.

"Oh shit!" the blond cursed. He ran over to the water and dived in. Living on a boat for so long made him a strong swimmer. The pond was big though. It would take him a good thirty seconds to make his way over to Red. The trainer had managed to latch himself onto Squirtle. Really, there was no need for the swordsman to go out to help him. It was more of a reflex than anything.

As Toon Link neared, it became clear that Red wasn't so okay. Though the boy was gripping tightly onto Squirtle, something had suddenly pulling him under. Toon's mind filled with visions of all the enemies it could possibly be. If it was a Gyord then Red was as good as dead. Those shark-like enemies had a powerful bite. Once they got a hold of you, it was all over. Toon had nearly gotten killed by them a few times. It would be better luck if it was simply an Octorock. Then there was still some chance to recover the boy.

As Toon dived under to see what was going on, he remembered this was not his world. The creature that had a hold of his friend's leg looked a lot like an Octorock, but it wasn't. It the wrong colour and shape, not to mention it's too big. This might be a bit more difficult than he expected.

Squirtle was trying her best to pry the creature off of her master's leg. Underwater, Red could not give her orders. She could normally form a decent plan of her own, but panic had over taken her. She was actually lucky that the blond boy was close enough to reach the creature now. He pulled the sword off of his back, greatly slowed thanks to the water resistance, and slashed downward with all his strength. The creature had to choose between releasing his friend and fleeing or losing a leg. It chose wrong.

Ink seeped out of the severed tentacle from both sides. The creature must have decided that Red was too much trouble, as it swam away to nurse its severed limb. This gave Squirtle the chance to pull her master up and out of the water. Toon Link quickly followed suit.

"I am so-"

"Dude you-

"-sorry! I didn't realize you were-"

"-just saved my ass! Damn you-"

"-balancing! I could have-"

"-sure can swim fast! Thanks-"

"-gotten you killed!"

"-a ton!"

The boy's tried to communicate in between gasps for air. They ended up speaking over each other's words. Their messages didn't get through. Instead, they had both made it harder to breathe. Though both boys in very good shape, they were under the water for a good amount of time. Since Red went down first, Toon Link managed to recover his breath first.

"Are you alright? It didn't cut you anywhere did it? Did it fire any bombs at you?" Toon Link couldn't help but associate it with the Octorocks back home. It looked far more like the bomb firing type, and as such, the boy had to cover all the possibilities of what the species could do.

"Bombs? Course not," Red managed once he had recovered his breathe. "She just grabbed me. The big girl was only playing. Well, mostly. Tentacruel are very territorial. She wasn't too happy to suddenly see a human in her area. She would have let go as soon as I passed out, though. Pokémon like her aren't killers."

"Well, she could have fooled me," the blond boy huffed. "I really thought you were going to die there! I would never have forgiven myself if she really hurt you!"

"Why would you need to forgive yourself?" the trainer asked. "You didn't do anything."

"I startled you and you fell off of your Pokémon. It's my fault you got attacked. If I hadn't scared you…" The swordsman hung his head in shame as he treaded water.

"Oh, you think you were the one that got me knocked off? Nah. I get interrupted while fishing all the time." This got the blond to look to Red with surprise. "I actually fell off because she nudged me. I could say you distracted Squirtle, since she was supposed to be on look out, but that's not a big deal. Tentacruel was the one to blame here, and she's already been punished."

The trainer swam closer and placed a hand on Toon's back. "Stop worrying. You didn't hurt me, Tentacruel did. I wouldn't blame you even if it was your fault. But there's been no harm done, so let's get the hell back to shore before she comes back for revenge."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea right about now."

The two boys swam to shore, Squirtle circling around them as they did. The little Pokemon could have been there in an instant, but the guilt of almost getting her trainer killed kept her from straying far. Toon Link had to slow himself down as well. Red was actually a very bad swimmer. This may have been a bit of a biased thought, though. Toon judged the other boy's swimming by his own standard. Of course a regular boy couldn't keep up with someone who lived on a boat for months.

Once on shore, both boys had to try and dry off. Toon Link and Red's shoes were both full of water. Much to the hyrulian's shame, so what his bag. Normally he left it on shore or in his boat friend when he went swimming. He hadn't had a chance to do so when he saw Red fall off. He was luck he didn't try, since it took almost a minute to get all his gear off. If he had, Red could have been in a worse situation.

"I really didn't plan on going for a dip today," Red complained as he emptied out his own bag. "I guess I've gotta except that it's a risk everytime I go surfing on Squirtle."

"It does seem kinda risky. It's a shame she's not any bigger. If you even take one step off, you're going down," Toon teased. This seemed to offend the little water type, who proceeded to squirt a small blast at Toon's feet. "Whoa, whoa there little girly. I wasn't trying to be insulting. I was just joking around. You guys have to be pretty skilled to pull off that off."

"Sorry about her. Pikachu is starting to rub off on her." The trainer gave the Squirtle an annoyed glare. "Thanks for the compliment though. It's a pretty handy skill. I'll admit, it can be a little stressful, especially during battle."

"Wow, you can fight like that?" the hyulian asked, clearly impressed. "I can barely handle battling in a boat. How does it work exactly?"

"As much as I've love to go into the details-" his tone implied that he was lying about that "-it's not something I can describe. It sloppy and kind of embarrassing to do, especially since Ivysaur and Charizard can't swim. We get it done though. It's not like you don't come face to face with some really nasty Pokémon while you're travelling around the seas."

"Oh, I know what you mean. We may not have Pokémon in my homeland, but the seas aren't all that safe." Toon smiled. It was nice to get to talk about his journey for once. Ness and Lucas were always scolding him for letting too much slip out. "I guess you're not as much of a push over as everyone thinks."

"Everyone thinks I'm a push over?" Oh no, the toon had realized too late that he was letting his mouth run again. When he thought something, it came out, whether he wanted it to or not. However, Red looked far from upset. If anything, he looked pleased. There was a tiny bit of blood thirst in his smile. It wasn't a bad thing. Toon Link assumed all fighters got that way at some point. "I guess that means it will be all the easier to trick people into thinking they can beat me in a brawl, just to kick them down into the dirt."

"No, no, I didn't mean in brawls," the blond corrected. "I mean you personally. I-I don't mean to be rude about it or anything. It's just people sometimes say that you're weak cause you make your Pokémon fight for you."

"Squirt!" Squirtle let out an indignant cry. She began to hop up and down in rage until Red placed his hand on her head to calm her.

"I already knew that." Red's smile calmed to a melancholy one. "They aren't wrong, well in that I'm weak. I'm not like everyone else here. I could never fight on my own. It's not something I'm ashamed of, though. My Pokémon are my greatest allies. If I had to choose between fighting with them by my side or being the strongest brawler in the mansion, I'd pick them every time."

This caused the water type to start nuzzling her trainer's leg. Toon Link smiled at the sight. Red must never feel lonely. He'd always have his Pokémon with them. They weren't like simple pets. They were smarter than that. They were amazing creature and some of the best friends that anyone could ever have. Without realizing it, the blond's smile had slipped to a frown.

"Toonie?" the trainer asked. "Are you feeling alright? You've got this sad look on your face."

"O-oh… I just…" The toon was going to lie. He remembered Link's words. He really wasn't any good at his. It would be best if he just told Red the truth. "I guess I feel a little jealous of how close you are with you Pokemon. They really seem to love you. I wish I had someone I was that close with."

"So you're lonely?" Toon narrowed his cat eyes. He was really starting to think that all three of his fries were mind readers. "And no, I'm not reading your mind. You just have it written all over you face. Gosh Toonie, you are easier to read than a picture book."

"…I guess I am a little lonely. Sometimes, when I think too much, I start to worry that none of your guys actually like me." The blond was really starting to hate his mouth. "I know it's silly. I mean, you wouldn't hang out with me if you didn't want to. It's not like you're trying to keep up appearances or anything. I know you guys are my friends, I just…"

"I get it." Red place his hand on the swordsman's back. "Sometimes your mind just gets a little bit away from you. It happens to everyone sometimes. There's no reason to be ashamed of it. If anything, you should be proud that you've taken it so well. But you should talk to someone about it. What about big Link?"

"I do talk to him about it," Toon corrected. "It just doesn't stop. It's silly. So let's not talk about this. We're here to fish right?"

The cracking in his voice made it clear how uncomfortable this subject made the blond boy. His friend relented right away, even removing his hand from the other boy's back. The trainer nodded and grabbed his fishing pole from his bag. There was a devilish look in Red's eyes as he slipped what looked like a PokePuff on the end of the hook. It looked a lot fancier than the ones that the boy had tricked them into eating.

"You're fishing for Pokémon?" Toon Link asked.

"Well, they are all that's in the pond. It's a good way to train my team up. It's hard for them to maintain their levels when they aren't fighting other Pokémon. We don't want to return home and find out that the teams' lost their killer edge." The trainer paused for a moment. "You know, I didn't believe Ness at first about the battles. I thought he was just bluffing, and they'd be just like normal Pokémon battles. I guess we had to learn the hard way not to disregard a veteran. Fighting people and fighting Pokémon are two very different things. We need to keep up training on both."

"The question was more about whether we're allowed to train on the wild Pokémon…" the cat eyed boy trailed off.

"Oh, sorry. I tend to go on rants, don't I?" Red rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. "We're allowed to train on them however we want. The sandbags are good for strength, training with others teaches us about them, but the forest teaches endurance. Fight a few waves of Zubat and you'll be wishing that you had a little more stamina."

"So we can use the forest too… I wish someone had told me this before!" The toon gave an annoyed huff. He took a short break from speaking to cast his line into the water. "I hope you don't mind me coming out here to train with you then."

"The more the merrier!" With that Red cast his own line. "I hope you're ready for a battle, though. I used one of my special PokePuffs. There's no way that any Pokémon can resist it."

"There are different types?"

"Yep, lots. The higher the quality, the harder they are to make though. Normally I use the basic stuff, since they are just as filling. The only difference is when I'm trying to attract wild Pokémon." The trainer looked his line. "You know, I can show you a few tricks for getting Pokémon to fight you. Y-you know since you're planning to use them for training and all."

For some reason, Toon Link got the feeling his friend was planning something. He was about to ask when his friend was suddenly dragged forward a little bit. On insist, the blond swordsman grabbed his friend's waist and held him in place.

"Looks like we got a bite!" Red gasped out. "Squirtle, lure her up!"

"Squirt!"

The blue Pokémon dove into the water and began charging toward the Pokémon on the line. Squirtle disappeared under the water for a moment, only to come up in a huge reverse waterfall, forcing up the strange Pokémon from before up. Tentacruel, as Red call her, was still leaking ink out of her severed tentacle. The large Pokemon was sent flying by the attack of the little Pokémon. If this was a brawl, she would have lot a stock. This was the real world though. Instead, she landed in the nearby flowers with a loud thud.

The fight wasn't over, of course. The large Pokémon was strong. If she wasn't, Master Hand wouldn't have brought her here. Even the training Pokémon were above average in strength. She forced herself up onto her many tentacles. Squirtle landed near her, still ready for a fight.

"Well, are you training or not?" the Pokémon trainer asked his friend. This caused Toon Link to jump a little. He'd been staring, instead of getting ready for battle. The boy had most of his gear discarded already. Instead, he simply picked up his sword. The Master Sword was more than enough for a creature like this.

It didn't take the cat eyed boy long to run over. Red was following behind him. The trainer was considerably slower than he was, but the boy could still keep up. Toon had almost forgotten his friend liked to be right with his Pokémon during a fight. Brawls must be rather distressing then.

"Squirtle, use water gun!" Red called. He wasn't as close as he'd like to be, but they had the advantage, so they'd best use it. Water gun really didn't do that much to the Tentacruel, since it was used to water. Toon did see it flinch a little, which was a testament to Squirtle's power.

The Master Sword hurt the creature far more. There was no training barrier for the Pokémon, so Toon Link had no choice but to use the flat of his sword to strike. It may have tried to drown his friend, but he didn't want to kill a Pokémon. The creature was thrown back by the attack, at least a little. It responded by lashing out at Toon with its tentacles. It was only his instincts that allowed him to dodge. They told him there was something not quite right about that strike.

"Good job dodging! That was poison jab. It would have really hurt if it hit," Red called from the side lines. Link frowned a little at his friend's comment. He wished he'd been warned earlier. "Now, Squirtle, waterfall!"

The little Pokémon preformed the same reverse waterfall move as before. It didn't work quite as well this time. The Tentacruel was clever enough to know what the Pokémon was about to do and threw herself back out of the way. Toon Link cursed. Normally Red didn't call out what he wanted his Pokémon to do. Normally he used signals or codes. He wondered why the trainer was holding back now.

Tentacruel struck again. She spat out a large wave of sludge. Toon Link barely dodged it. To do so, he had to leap back a few good feet. This slowed his attack considerably. He was not done yet, though. The boy leapt forward, leaping at the Pokémon and striking it over the head with his sword. It wobbled back and forth, clearly stunned. It attempted another wave of sludge, but it somehow sprayed right up in the air, hurting itself instead.

"Looks like we got her right where we want her." When had Red gotten so close? He was less than a foot behind the cat eyed boy now. Suddenly, Toon Link felt something being placed in his hand. "Here, use this."

The toon hardly realized what he was doing before it was all over. He knew the shape of the item. Damn it, he knew exactly what the item was. And yet… He threw it anyway. Something about how the trainer spoke, that specific tone, made his obey the order without question. And so, that was the story of how Toon Link ended up throwing a strange, blue Pokeball at a wild Pokémon. He knew right away that this had been his friend's end goal.

The ball hit Tentacruel, turning the Pokémon red for a moment. It was pulled inside. The ball shook one, then twice. Finally, it went still. The Pokémon inside was tamed. It no longer wished to fight them.

"…Red… What did we just do?" Toon asked with wide eyes.

"We fought a Pokémon," his friend replied pridefully. "_You_, on the other hand just caught your first Pokémon. Congrats, friend. You're a trainer now."

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Toon turned and grabbed his dark haired friend. He shook the trainer's shoulders lightly. "I don't even come from your world, how the hell can I be a trainer?!"

"Cause you caught her. You were the one that threw the ball. That means she's your Pokémon now. It doesn't matter that I was the one to give you the ball. You're the one she'll want to be with now." Red was still smiling, despite the fact he was shook. "You said you were jealous of how close I was with my Pokémon."

"That didn't mean I wanted to be a trainer!" The cat eyed boy released his friend. "What am I supposed to do with her? I-I don't know the first thing about Pokémon!"

"I'll teach you." Now it was the older trainer's turn to take his friend by the shoulders. "You were facing some issues. You felt like you were alone. That's not good for you. In my home, when a kid is feeling like that, it means it's time for him to get his first Pokémon. A Pokémon will love you regardless. Even if you don't want to train her or fight with her, your Pokémon will always stay by your side."

Toon felt something against his side. Squirtle was standing there, holding up the balls for the blond to take. He didn't have anything to say back to his friend. Though it annoyed him that he was tricked into this, but he was also a little happy. He'd have a companion that would never leave. Somehow, it brought ease to his nerves. The boy looked at the ball and clicked the button. It flicked open and Tentacruel immerged.

Right away, Toon Link found himself wrapped up in dozens of tentacles. He thought it was an attack until he realized that the creature was also nuzzling him. She was hugging him. He cracked a little bit of a smile.

"Aww, you aren't cruel at all, are you girl?" he cooed as he reached up and stroked her oversized nose. "A name like Tentacruel doesn't suit you at all."

"Then why don't you nickname her something?" Red suggested. "I didn't with my Pokémon, but it's a personal choice."

Toon hummed lightly. His eyes were drawn to the Pokémon's severed tentacle. He felt quite bad over that. He was saving a friend, but he still shouldn't have attacked so harshly. Thinking of missing legs brought him to peg legs, which brought him to pirates, then parrots.

"Paulie. I'll call you Paulie," the boy decided. This got a smile out of his taller friend.

"She isn't the cutest Pokémon, but I think you and Paulie will get along just fine," Red chimed in. Suddenly his tone dropped. "Well, unless Master Hand kills us first."

"…You really didn't think this out, did you?"

"Nope."


	9. The Memory

**Hey everyone. Sorry this chapter took so long. I've been busy with school stuff. I move to my new house in four days. I am quite excited, but reasonably terrified for the school year. However, this break is not entirely the fault of school. The rest lands squarely on my shoulders. **

**You see, I wanted to write Claus again, after I finished HAHH, so I started a Claus roleplay blog. It's my first canon roleplay blog for a fandom that's actually active and, to my surprise, it's been taking all of my time. I still love it. Anyway, updates won't be as quick from now on, but I will smack myself if I let a week pass without at least starting the next chapter.**

**The lovely new cover image is thanks to sunflowerself of tumblr.**

* * *

Master Hand had his hands full, pun very much intended, with the tournament. As an omnipotent creature that brought a world into existence together with his younger brother, the hand was constantly working on fixing some sort of error. He blamed most of these on Crazy Hand. He had made the Smash world huge, something that he regretted to this day, and because of that, there were many problems that could occur. Sometimes he would discover he'd accidentally broken the laws of physics. Even if he fixed something, it would be broken again in a few days.

Keeping this world up and running was a full time job. Lucky for the hand, he didn't have to sleep so he could always be working. Unluckily for the hand, that meant he always had to be working. This left him with very little time for himself. Correction, this left him with no time for himself. When he wasn't fixing on his mistakes, he was fixing someone else's.

The brawlers were strong, amazing people. The problem was that bringing that many heroes and villain to one place would always bring up problems. Worlds clashed, people clashed. He'd been lucky that things went so smoothly with his first tournament. The original twelve were not the most friendly of smashers, but at least they knew how to get along. This was not so true for the second batch. The Melee smashers were a much bigger and more violent group. Master Hand had been lucky they didn't tear this whole world apart.

Sometimes the smashers would ask if his brother was beginning to influence him, especially when he decided the third tournament would have even more smashers than the last. At least it would be interestingly. There was nothing the omnipotent hated more than boredom. Murder could be a problem, but he could reverse it. Boredom was the true curse of an immortal.

* * *

Ness and Lucas had waited all day for their appointment with Master Hand. They understood he was a busy hand, even if they didn't like it. They would not rush the omnipotent creature. It was just a little unnerving to wait for such an important answer. Lucas had to know what he forgot. If he didn't, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to continue as a smasher. If what happened with Pikachu happened again?

"Luc, you okay?" Ness asked from the seat beside him. They were currently seated in the lobby in front of the hand's office. "You look a little pale again."

"I'm fine. …I think." The blond gave a tiny sigh. "I was just thinking about stuff. Brawl stuff."

"You worried over an up coming fight or something?" As nice as he was, Ness was a little dense. Lucas could understand that though. Being able to peek into someone's mind, even being so strong as to do so by accident, meant that Ness didn't really need to know how to read people without PSI. This was good luck for Lucas.

"Sorta. It's just something silly. I just don't want to make a fool of myself again." The blond was lying, but his raven haired friend was none the wiser. Sometimes Ness would be on guard for lies from him friend, but most of the time he didn't notice them. "I also… I'm worried about whether Master Hand can help me remember or not."

"Course he can. He's Master Hand. There's not all that much that he can't do," the older boy explained. "Well, apparently except for make time for a silly little meeting."

"Ness, I really don't think you should insult him right outside his office," his shy counterpart whispered. Of course, Lucas doubted that whispering out change anything. Master Hand saw heard and pretty much knew everything that went on in his universe. Unless a creature of similar power appeared, he could play with the smashers like toys. It was for that reason that Lucas really didn't like Master Hand.

A chuckle caused both boys to flinch. The hand didn't need to move naturally. He just appeared in front of them as if he had always been there. His tone was good natured, but it only served to unnerve Lucas even more.

"Correction, you really shouldn't be insulting me anywhere on my world," the massive hand teased. "I swear, if you weren't a special case, I would have vaporized you during the first tournament."

While the blond took this as an actual threat, it only got a light chuckle out of its target. "If you vaporized me, you'd be losing your access to my charming personality."

"Yes, and that's why Paula has turned rejected you each time you asked her out." The hand acted almost as if he was friends with the boy. Lucas knew that couldn't be true right. He looked to Ness to see a reaction, but the black haired boy didn't seem to mind. In fact, he seemed to find it quite funny. The hand and the boy were joking around like old friends.

"Only cause she doesn't wanna date until she's sixteen," Ness protested through a laugh. "Anyway, Luc here wanted to talk with you. Would you mind pencilling him into your schedule?"

"Of course not. I was just wondering why you were here as well. If Lucas' inquiry has to do with his home land-"

"It doesn't," the blond finally piped up. "It's about something else. Besides, I asked Ness to come with me. I… I didn't want to come here by myself. I might have chickened out if he wasn't here with me."

"Then it must be a very important problem. Come into my office then. As okay as you are with Ness being here to hear whatever your problem is, I doubt that you would be okay with everyone else listening here. There is no need to worry about that in my office. It's completely soundproof."

Well, Lucas liked the sound of that less. The hand could probably kill him right then and there, but he didn't. That didn't change the fact Lucas didn't want to be in an area where nobody could hear him get threatened. That's what leaders did, in his eyes, they hurt the people they were in charge of. Though Lucas wanted to refuse, Ness had already gotten up and started to approach the office. He might not trust Master Hand, but he did trust his fellow psychic.

Once the blond got up, he was in a different room. It was rather dizzying, but this was Master Hand's power. It confused the blond why the hand would teleport them in when it was only a few second walk into the real office.

"It's because the door to my office isn't a real door. I don't want anyone breaking in without my permission, and several of the smashers can pick locks," the hand answered. This caused the blond boy to jump a little. He'd forgotten the hand could read his mind. It was unnerving, mostly because the hand could read _his _mind. Nobody could do that. Well, besides Claus, but that was a twin thing. No matter how powerful a psychic they were, nobody had ever been able to access Lucas' mind.

"Don't worry, I'm not reading your mind-"

"Well, clearly you are now!"

"No, no," Master Hand began. He shot a glare at Ness, who was doing his best to look innocent. "I realized from the look on your face that Ness didn't explain this to you. It's not like it's the first time this boy has been in my office. He should have warned you, as your veteran or as your friend. "

"Hey, I learned on my own. He should have to as well," Ness protested. This got him another glare from the hand.

"You were one of the Original Twelve, and also the first one of them to break a rule and get called into my office. There was nobody there to warn you. But you could have at least warned Lucas," the hand scolded before turning his attention back to Lucas. "He had almost the same reaction to you. It's how I knew which questions to answer. I wouldn't go into your mind without your permission."

Lucas shifted awkwardly. So Master Hand hadn't gone through his mind. At the same time, the hand had made it pretty clear that if he wanted to, he could. That was a point of discomfort for the blond still. He should have known better. Master Hand was as close to a god as one could find, besides the Dark Dragon of his homeland. There was no way he could keep something that powerful out of his mind.

"Speaking of going into minds…" Ness began.

"No."

That was not the answer that Lucas had expected. He looked to Master Hand with surprise. The giant hand looked a little annoyed at his purple eyed friend.

"That is the exact reason why Mew Two is no longer with us," Master Hand began. "You can't use your powers to poke around in people's heads. I don't have that many rules about what you people can and cannot do, but that it one of them. I won't stand for such an invasion of privacy."

"That wasn't what we were asking," Ness muttered. "I'm not like that. I wouldn't barge around someone's head without their permission."

"Then what exactly where you asking?" Now the hand sounded curious. He'd assumed it was a simple question of breaking the rules. Now the situation had gotten much more interesting. Lucas met his hatted friend's gaze. It looked like it was up to him to ask. Well, this was his problem to begin with.

"I wanted to ask you to go through my memories. I've forgotten something, something really important. If I can't remember, all of my matches could end up like the one with Pikachu." The blond boy tried to appealed to the hand's sense of business. Surely he didn't want to lose one of his fighters because they had a strange fear.

"Oh, yes! Thank you for reminding me. I haven't had the time lately, but I wanted to apologize." The hand's answer came as a surprise to Lucas. Once Master Hand noticed his confusion, he continued. "I should have thought over the match ups better. Originally, I thought that you would want to be partnered up with one of your friends. I knew you were close to the Pokémon Trainer, so I had you two assigned together. I didn't realize that Pikachu was his veteran. Don't worry, I promise that you won't have to fight him ever again."

The blond looked around hat his hatted friend for an answer, but Ness seemed to be just as confused as he was. It was like the hand knew that Lucas would have reacted like that to lightning. Lucas felt anger well up for a second, but it was squashed when he remembered it was an accident. He might not like the hand, but he wouldn't judge him harshly for an accident.

"…Wait, what? So you knew…?" Ness was able to vocalize his confusion much better than his blond friend.

"Of course I knew," Master Hand replied in a somewhat insulted tone. "It's my responsibility to know the strengths and weakness of all of my smashers. I would not have put Lucas' mental health at risk like that had I realized the situation."

"But how did you know? I didn't know I was afraid of lightning," Lucas objected.

The hand gave the blond boy a surprised look. "Well, I just assumed. You didn't have to tell me. I thought you would have known too. I mean, after what happened…"

"What happened? What does my fear of lightning have to do with 'what happened'?" the blond asked. The hand just seemed to get more and more surprised, bringing up some anger in the boy. "What?"

"Lucas… Do you not remember how your story ended?" the hand asked in a quiet tone.

"I said I forgot something really important. What could be more important than that?" Lucas replied, his words almost a hiss now. "That's why I wanted you to go through my head. I want to know if I suceeded or failed. Right now, I don't even know if my friends are alive."

Master Hand straightened up, trying to appear more seriously. "Of course. It would be shameful if you forgot something like that. It must have been an error with your transportation here. I will be sure you help you regain those memories. I have a brother of my own, if I forgot something like that…"

_Brother._

Lucas felt a sudden twist in his gut. The blond boy covered his mouth and leaned over. As soon as he did that, Ness was by his side.

"Luc! Are you alright?" the black haired boy asked, concern ringing clear in his tone. Lucas pressed his hand against the other and pushed his away. He didn't need Ness to protect him. He could deal with this feeling on his own.

"I'm fine. I just got a weird pain for a second. Don't worry about me. It's probably nothing," Lucas replied in a failed attempt to calm his friend's nerves. Having a twin brother who used PSI, he knew how to read face's well enough to catch something that obvious.

"I think I am beginning to figure out what exactly you forgot. The memories are still there, judging from that reaction. If I can force them up, then we can recover them. It won't be a very pleasant experience," Master Hand explained, having watched the scene intently. He floated closer to Lucas, giving the blond a bit of a chill. "Do I still have permission to look in your head?"

The blond psychic nodded. He didn't like giving the other permission to do so. He didn't know what Master Hand would do in there. By now, he'd realized that if the hand really wanted to hurt him, he would have by now. No, the hand mostly seemed to have good intentions. That didn't change the fact Lucas didn't trust him. Why would he trust someone that could kill him in an instant? In the end, it would always been a case of better safe than sorry.

"Alright," the hand began. "I'm about to start the investigation…"

It felt like something powerful had reached into Lucas' mind. It easily shoved the guards he put up aside. It was the most disturbing feeling the blond had felt in a long time. Was this was it was like when he looked into others minds? He didn't like to do it, but he had before. It had been for important reasons, mostly life threatening ones. He's never done it again since. But he didn't have the power to go back someone's guards. Not like Master Hand. He'd tried. When he first met the Masked Man, he tried to burrow into the man's mind, to find out how he knew PK Love, but the other repelled him.

Suddenly, the feeling changed. The Lucas let out a cry of pain. It wasn't like the invading force. This was different, much stronger. His vision faded suddenly. All that was around him was a black mess of pain. There were two great forces fighting in his head. He begged at them to stop, but they wouldn't. He let his guards down, but nothing changed. Whatever was in his head didn't want interference.

Suddenly, the world returned. Lucas leaned against the nearest thing and panted. He hadn't realized he had been holding his breathe while the fighting went on, but he had been. As the pain faded, he realized the thing he was leaning against was Ness. He should have pushed him away, but he didn't. Ness was his friend. Right now, he needed that support.

As his vision cleared, he was surprised to see Master Hand on the floor. The blond's eyes widened and he looked to Ness for answer. His hatted friend simply shrugged.

"I don't know what happened. At first you two were just staring off blankly, then all of a sudden, you looked like you were in pain, so I rushed over. He fell down a bit after, but you were in pain. No offense to him, but my friends come first," Ness explained. His blond counterpart gave him a small nod.

"That's quite alright."

Master Hand's voice made the two jump. Considering he was a hand, the two had assumed he was unconscious. It wasn't like he had eyes they could check. Now the hand was starting to float up again, but he was wobbly.

"It was my fault that I fell. I also need to apologise to you once again, Lucas," the hand said. "I had forgotten I was still in your head. I hope you can forgive me. I did, however, manage to gain a little bit of information on what is going on. It's not as cut and dry as I originally thought…"

Now this had gotten Lucas' attention. He shrugged Ness away from him and leaned forward. He hadn't been able to form words after the sudden pain in his head, but he could use body language for now. The words would be back soon, but he needed to understand now.

"As it turns out, the cause of your memory loss is in no way my fault," Master Hand began. "But it's not your fault either. I really don't understand how it happened, but someone is sealing your memory. The cause of the pain in your head was me trying to remove the seal, which leads to a bigger problem. I couldn't remove it. I control everything in this world, and I couldn't remove the seal on your mind."

"So, what does that mean?" Ness asked. Lucas shot him a grateful glance. He would have asked the same question him, were he not currently incapable of speech.

"That means that whatever sealed Lucas' memory has a god like level of strength. I thought for a moment that it was my brother. Crazy hasn't been around much lately. It wouldn't be a surprise if he was playing tricks because he felt left out. However, when I pushed it, the power felt foreign. It's not like anything that I've felt before." Master Hand's voice picked up an annoyed tone, something that the two PSI boys weren't expecting. "I couldn't remove the seal, which means something very bad for Lucas. I could be bad for all of us, if the creature that sealed his memories isn't friendly, or if it's here. The fact I couldn't remove its seal means that it's more powerful than I am."

"But…" Lucas managed at last. "How can it? I never met someone like that."

"Well, you clearly have. It's probably hiding that memory, as well as other surrounding ones. If I remember your story correctly…" The hand trailed off for a moment. "This is troublesome… I have the feeling I know what this creature is, but I don't have enough data on it."

"I thought you knew everything about everyone's stories," Ness yelled suddenly. "If Lucas doesn't know, can't you just look it up? You can look all through our lives, so…"

"It's not that easy. God like beings, such as myself and the creature can't interfere with each other's business. In rare cases like Lucas here, he attend to the parts we need and try to ignore each other. I don't know what it wants from the boy, but given the history of what I think it is…" Master Hand trailed off and gave a sigh. "I can't help you, but I did do enough damage to the seal that it should start to crumble eventually. Unless that creature puts another one up, which is can't do until that one is gone, it will crumble if you keep prodding at the memory enough. I was surprise it was already so damaged. You must have a strong mind, Lucas."

"Thanks," the blond muttered. "So, I guess you did help me a little. I'll find out what this thing is and what is took away soon enough."

"I have no doubt that if you would have been able to guess what it was if it weren't keep those thoughts from you as well." The hand straightened up. "It seems another two smashers have been getting themselves into trouble, trying to catch Pokémon from the pond. I have to attend to them now. I'm going to teleport you out my office."

"Wait rig-" Ness was interrupted as the scenery around they changed. They were back in the hallway outside the hand's office. The black haired boy gave an annoyed sound. "I wish he would have given us a little more warning first. Would it kill him to wait five seconds?"

"You can't blame him. God like beings work on a different time frame than us. Time probably flows much slower for him," Lucas tried to explain. This got him a surprised look from his black haired friend.

"I didn't know you knew so much about gods and stuff," the older psychic replied.

"I didn't either, but given what Master Hand said, it probably do. Maybe some of the information that I knew before it already slipping out." The blond looked back over to the office. "But, if he can't help, I guess this thing has become a waiting game. It's not like there's anyone else that would know."

"Actually…" Ness smiled the same evil grin that he did everytime he came up with a moronic plan. Lucas gave an annoyed groan. "Thinking back to something that Red said to me the other day, I think I know just who to ask about your memory issues."

"Who then?" Lucas raised an eyebrow at the other's plan.

"Rope Snake, of course. He was with you for most of your journey, right?" the dark haired boy asked.

"Well, yeah," Lucas replied. "But he left us near the end, cause of some issues we had along the way. He accidentally messed up a few times and felt really guilty because of it. I didn't blame him, though. It's not like he did it on purpose. But, he wasn't there when the final battle happened."

"That doesn't matter. What matters is that he was with you when you came here. Didn't you ever question that?" Ness paused for dramatic effect. It worked well enough as his blond friend froze at the realization. "With the way you were talking before, you didn't know how the story ended. You really thought you had been teleported here right as it reached the finale. But you never questioned why Rope Snake, who wasn't there at the end, was with you?"

"Y-you're right…" Lucas looked down at the pocket where he normally kept the snake. "I never thought it was weird at all. I had all the information to connect the dots, I just didn't. My PSI too, I know new abilities that I didn't before. I thought it was weird, but never wondered when I learned them. I only knew that I had…"

"It's alright. It's like what Master Hand said earlier. It didn't just erase your memory. It made sure you wouldn't realize that you had forgotten things. It just didn't account for the fact that you're got a strong mind." Ness placed his fist against Lucas' forehead lightly. "You're strong, so you remembered you were missing memories. You just couldn't get at these things yet. But not to worry. Two psychic boys are better than one. For the things you can't figure out on your own, I will work out for you."

"We're going to be in big trouble if you have to do all the thinking," Lucas replied with a little laugh. The horror had faded now. Once he realized something, the creature's seal didn't strike out and swallow those thoughts in the darkness again. He knew what he had to do now. His snake friend could be the answer to all of their questions.

* * *

"I still don't get why he sleeps on my bed," Ness complained. "I mean, he's your friend and battle partner. Why can't he sleep on your bed?"

"Well, you kind of smell, and he used to travel with my smelly friend, Duster. He probably smells your bed and thinks of home," Lucas mused. This earned him a glare from his dark haired friend. He chose to ignore it.

"I still don't like the thought of a snake in my bed," the black haired boy whined.

"Well, just imagine he's a rope," the blond attempted, only to get another glare. Annoying Ness was fun and all, but they had things to do.

Lucas walked over to Ness' bed where Rope Snake always slept. The red snake normally slept with him at night, but he was a lazy thing and enjoyed sleeping in Ness' bed during the day. Despite what he said when he was teasing Ness, Lucas had really meant it when he said that Rope Snake was probably reminded of Duster. Duster's smell wasn't so bad, besides his breath, and neither was Ness'. The hatted boy just needed to learn to shower before doing to bed, or his sheets would keep smelling like sweat.

"Rope Snake, get up. I need your help for my next brawl." The snake was always eager to please. As soon as it heard the blond say that, the snake leapt up and wrapped around the boy's arm. It was halfway to his pocket before Lucas managed to grab him.

"H-huh? Why did you stop me? Don't you need a snake with rope like abilities to help you? H-have you found a new partner?" Rope Snake turned to Ness and gave a hiss. "If you sto-"

"Stop…" Lucas gave a little sigh. His little red friend was always jumping to conclusions. Since they came to a new world, Rope Snake had become extremely affectionate and protective. He assumed it was because he was the only person the snake knew. "Ness is my friend, you're my partner. I can't use him as a rope."

"Can you use him as a snake?"

"I can't use him as a snake either."

"Good," the snake murmured. "I'm Lucas' partner, nobody else. But, anyway, what do you want? Is he mad at me for taking his bed again? I would have gotten off if he needed it. I only used it cause it was open."

"Ness has nothing to do with this, so please leave him alone for five minutes," the blond PSI user replied. "I need to talk to you about something really important. Now, you need to take it very seriously."

"Yes, yes. I am listening…" The snake rolled his eyes before snaking back up the blond's arm.

"Rope Snake… Why am I forgetting things?" Lucas asked. He watched the snake carefully. He didn't want to read his mind, no, he actually couldn't thanks to the rules, but he had to check to see in Rope Snake had the same memory issues as him.

"Y-you're forgetting things? Now isn't that weird, I don't think you're forgetting things," the snake stuttered out. He looked away. Immediately, Lucas gripped him a little tighter. Rope Snake was hiding something big. Betrayal found its way into the blond's gaze. The snake might be working with whoever did this to him.

"Rope Snake, I already know I'm forgetting things. What I need you to do is tell me what I'm forgetting. Why, if you know that, too. Actually, I need to know who did it most importantly," the blond boy stated. He gave the red snake a harsh glare. Though normally never very aggressive, he wasn't just going to let his friend lie to him like this.

"Lucas, I can't," Rope Snake admitted. "I know you don't understand, I know that you can't. If I told you, you wouldn't be able to handle it. So I won't. Isn't it better not to know?"

"He's clearly working with whatever took away your memory," Ness commented. Lucas froze. He'd never heard his friend sound so cold before. Then again, he and Rope Snake were not friends. Ness had no reason not to direct all of his anger on the little snake. "He's gotta know what exact its hiding."

"I am not working with anyone!" the snake hissed back. "You are clearly trying to drive Lucas and I apart. Do you want to become his new partner? You don't have any rope or snake like abilities! How could you provide him with any help?"

"I don't want to be his new partner. I want to help him, like a friend. Right now, you're not acting the part of partner or a friend," Ness responding, just as coldly as before. His words got to the snake. Lucas caught him readying himself just a moment before the snake lunged at the boy. Remembering how the snake could stretch, the blond grabbed him at the base of his head.

"Let go of me! I'm going to show him how much of a better-"

"Rope Snake, shut your jaw for five second before I break it off!" Lucas snapped. This stopped the snake cold. "Ness is not the problem here! You are! What type of partner let's someone mess with their friend's memory? What type of partner would side with the creature that did this instead of their partner? Aren't we friends? We travelled together. I know I'm no Duster, but I'm still your friend! Can't you trust me with this?"

The snake went silent. He's body went limb, red coils falling off of the blond boy's arm. Even without reading the snake's mind, he knew that Rope Snake was feeling guilt. Perhaps now the boy would be able to get some answers.

"I'm sorry, Lucas…" The red snake muttered.

"It's alright. I forgive you. Just tell me what happened. Please Rope Snake. You're my only hope of finding out." The blond put his faith in the reptile's guilt. The red snake remained completely limp.

"I'm not apologising for that. That is for your own good. I made a reptile's promise not to tell you. It's for your own good, Lucas! I'm apologising for** this**!" As soon as the blond realized what was going to happen, it already had. He'd forgotten Rope Snake has been there for a large part of the journey. He was fast and strong as well.

The snake slipped back through Lucas' relaxed grip, he had relaxed due to believing he would get his answer, and went back to the arm that held his body. He bit down in to the blond's hand. On instinct, the PSI user let out a pained cry and threw the offending creature against the wall. However, this was the opening that Rope Snake needed. He hit the wall, but recovery quickly. As soon as the snake hit the floor, he lashed out at the nearby vent with his tail. He used this to pull him to it.

By this point, Ness had recovered from the surprise. The hatted boy dove at the red snake, but Rope Snake had pulled himself out of the way before Ness could get to him. As Ness and Lucas recovered, the snake ripped the vent out of the wall and climbed inside. Neither boy was fast enough to catch him before he was beyond arm's reach.

"Damn it!" Lucas cursed, realizing Rope Snake had gotten away. "Why would he run? What the hell could the thing have promised him to keep him from telling me?"

"More importantly, why'd he say it was for your own good? Last time I checked, having massive gaps in your memory is not good for you," Ness pointed out. The anger was slowly leaving his voice as it turned to concern for his blond friend. "You gonna be okay? He's not poisonous, is he?"

"No. Too much rope in that snake for that… It still hurt. He's got jaw strength to make up for his lack of venom," the blond muttered, rubbing the still bleeding injury. "I shouldn't have let go of him. If I just held on…"

"He still wouldn't have told you anything. I know you're mad at him. I'm pissed too, but he seems to think this is for the best." Ness gave a sigh. "He'll be back soon. I mean, he's so worried about me replacing him as your partner that he has to."

Lucas gave a little hum. He had the feeling this was more serious than that. Time proved him right. Hours passed, but the small red head never poked out of the vent. Eventually he had to go to Master Hand. The only consolation the hand could offer was the lend Lucas was green clone of his old friend. This only made the blond feel worse. The green clone fought like Rope Snake, but it had none of his personality.

Looking down at the green clone, the boy could only give a sigh of regret. "What could be so important that he'd be willing to lose a friend over it…?"


	10. Interlude: The Dragon

**This was a double update. If you haven't read chapter nine, go back and read if before this. If you've come across this at a different time, sorry for the warning.**

* * *

_Long, long ago, in the middle of a land called Nowhere, there existed a species that surpassed humans. They were a shape shifting race of unbelievable power. Though they could shape shift, they rarely did. Pride was also a famous trait of theirs. They didn't like the idea of taking the form of another creature. So they remained in their normal form most of the time. Their massive size and ability was renowned throughout the world. All creatures in Nowhere bowed to the creatures. There might have been a king and queen in Nowhere, but everyone knew the true rulers were the dragons._

_The dragons of Nowhere held themselves with great pride. No human could surpass them, no weapon could pierce their tough hides. Only a dragon could kill a dragon. Their pride caused them to treat the human population of the island as nothing more than simple snacks. They would eat humans whenever they could. In fact, they enjoyed it more than eating even the finest of cattle. As they ate them, they also gained that humans' powers. Though it was still dormant in human, this was how dragons unlocked PSI, which they simply called magic._

_Things with limitless power do not last forever though. Dragons were incapable of growing old, and as such rarely laid any eggs. This became their downfall. Their DNA had never needed to change to adapt to the world. All of them were virtually the same as the day their race was first brought into the world. They had never needed to fear illness, at least no until it took out the majority of their population._

_The virus was highly infectious. It spread throughout the population before anyone was aware of what it was. However, there was a brief glimmer of hope for the dragons. This was in their young. For some reason, the virus didn't affect dragons below the age of five. Unfortunately, there were only a few dozen young dragons at the time._

_They surviving dragons were so young that they still had their weak baby scales. They were defenseless. The remaining adults knew that their children would not be able to care or feed themselves either. The adults were dying. They couldn't care for the children. They needed to rely on the other intelligent species to do so. The dragons used the last of their powerful magic to hide the young dragons in human form. They scattered them across Nowhere, leaving them on the doorsteps of human families._

_The magic the older dragons used was not perfect, though. It may hide the form of the young dragon, but it didn't erase their own memories or powers. These terrified young dragons often told their 'saviours' their true identities. They had lived their whole lives in the safety of a dragon community. They knew nothing of humans, or how humans hated their kind. Without understanding the blood on the claws of their ancestors, they put their complete trust into the hands of their mortal enemies. Dragon blood was spilled that day._

_Of the three dozen baby dragons that were sent to 'safety' only seven survived the first day. Of these seven, two were still too young to speak. The oldest of the children, three five year old dragons, had known enough to keep their mouth shut. The odd case came from the remaining two._

_Both had begged for their dragon parents, and yet they survived. The case of Belle, a female white dragon, was considered especially strange. Despite the fact she was a dragon, her caretakers had not held anything against her. They treated the girl just as they would any other child. Belle was able to grown up as a very happy and very human girl._

_The remaining child was very special. This dragon was a male black dragon, the strongest of all types of dragons. He had been placed specifically in the care of the royal family of the Nowhere Islands. Normally, they would have killed the boy on sight, but fate was on the boy's side. The royal couple had recently lost their own son._

_Prince Dwyer, the couple's only child as well as the heir to the throne, had gone out for a ride on his pony with a few members of the royal guard. People had been discontent with the royals for a while but nobody had excepted the local rebels to attack the young prince. Even the discontent citizens saw this as a low blow. The boy had been lost in the conflict, hardly even seven years old at the time._

_When the queen saw the five year old dragon, she could not believe her eyes. Though his skin was notably darker and his eyes were now an awful shade of red, she was convinced the young dragon was her son. Despite his protests that he was in fact a dragon, the queen never let him go. The woman flew into hysterics when the king insisted that they put the dragon child down. In the end there was no choice but to take him in._

_He was given the same name and title as the dead prince. Dwyer the dragon was displeased to have his old name taken from him, but he didn't hate the humans he lived with now. They were kind enough. Despite having an enormous appetite, they always kept him well fed. The queen loved him in the same way his parents had before the sickness took them. To the young dragon, that was enough._

_The king was a different case though. He always looked at his new dragon son with distain. However, he loved his wife. When she wanted something, he would give it to her. He had tried to cheer her up by executing the men that killed their biological son, but his wife only sank farther into depression. The dragon child was the only thing that brought a smile to Queen Ana's face anymore. Though he hated dragons for what they did to his kingdom, King Travis couldn't bring himself to harm the little dragon. He would never love him, but the child was free to stay._

_It wasn't until Dwyer was seven that he discovered the reason for the king's hate. His new mother was kind, but very protective. She had never let him out of the castle. The dragon prince longed to see the outside world. He was growing now and the clever guards couldn't keep him from sneaking out. At this age a dragon's magic started to form. Dwyer was already large for his age. He was over five feet by the age of seven, though the queen kept insisting he was nine, and rather broad. This size only began to tell just how to strong the boy was. He could leap farther than any grown man._

_The young prince used his magic to disguise himself on the day of the country's biggest celebration. He didn't want to make his new mother worry, but he just had to see it. The boy used this disguise and his great strength to sneak out of the palace, even going so far as to jump out of one of the castle windows so he could get over the wall._

_The boy was excited by the sights and the sounds of the city. What did not excite him was the fact he didn't have any money. He couldn't enjoy the new foods around him or buy any of the objects sold at the stand. He quickly found a free thing to do, though. He was invited to sit with a group of other children and watch a boy. At first, it seemed all fun and good. Then the dragons came up. This was first time he'd ever heard a story about his kind from the human point of view. He was horrified at what he heard._

_The boy was frozen in his spot throughout the whole story. He had wanted to get up and run away, but his body wouldn't let him. He heard more and more horrible things. The great illness, the purging of the dragon children… He realized suddenly why the king hated him._

Why wasn't I killed too? Aren't I the bad guy?_ The young prince asked himself these questions but got no answer._

_As he sat in horror, the royal guards had found the prince. His magic washed away when he lost control of his body. They were able to track him down the easily. Dwyer didn't bother to fight back while the guards took him back to his mother. Only in her warm embrace did he finally unfreeze._

_Queen Ana held him close. She had seen the horror in the boy's eyes and knew what exactly he had discovered. She held him close and told him everything would be alright. She begged the boy to please forget. And so, he did. _

_Dwyer twisted his magic into a different form, putting seals on his mind. He locked up the memories of his fellow dragons and the illness that nearly wiped them out. He even forgot that he was a dragon. From then on, he was just Prince Dwyer. In this way, the dragon found happiness._


End file.
